I walk these unfamiliar halls
by gypsyscarfwoman
Summary: Remi tries to make sense of a world that makes no sense to her anymore. Is there any place for her in Jane's life? (Season 4 speculation)
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Note:** I do NOT_ _cope well with season finales. I basically generate these strange, semi-coherent stream of consciousness thoughts (I can't even call them fics) until I have exorcised enough demons that I can wait semi-patiently for the fall premiere (or go lose myself in AU fics; that's the next step in this program). Thank you/I'm sorry for dragging you with me!_

* * *

She was doing a pretty good job, Remi thought, pretending to be an attentive wife while Weller recuperated. His meds made him sleepy, so she made sure that he _always_ took them on time.

The FBI wasn't as hard to fool as she would have expected. They fussed over her almost as much as they did Kurt. (Damn, she really had done a great job pulling the wool over their eyes.) She figured out quickly that if she kept her mouth shut most of the time, she was fine. And if that wasn't an option, she just had to give a tiny frown and raise a hand to her forehead, and they immediately suggested that she rest, too.

Rest. She snorted inwardly. She didn't need _rest,_ she needed _answers._ And so while Weller slept, she systematically searched every inch of the apartment for clues. She checked all of the places she would have used to hide a burner phone or a memory stick or anything she would have wanted to hide from Weller. She searched the vents, the underside of all the drawers. She looked for loose floorboards, for false backs or bottoms in closets and cabinets, for empty spaces behind switchplates or light fixtures. But every search came up empty.

And so in frustration, she turned to the more obvious sources of intel. The photos on the walls, the album on the end table. But the story there was nothing if not consistent. Her own smiling face looked back at her. She looked like any happy bride in their wedding photos. She even appeared to be wiping away tears in a few of the candid shots. There were pictures that showed the passage of seasons, of years. Pictures of her posing in Weller's arms, with the team, with the toddler who was his _daughter._ She shuddered at those—children weren't something she'd ever been around long enough to be comfortable with. But the version of herself in the photos certainly seemed to be. Her cover had obviously been very well established.

The photos on her phone told the same story. Endless photos of Kurt and Bethany—that was her name, his daughter. Named after the former AD of the NYO, Bethany Mayfair? Was she dead then, or just in jail?—and then a few that made her stop and examine them more closely.

Avery. Her _daughter_. She'd come to see _Jane_ while she and Kurt had still been in the hospital. It had taken everything Remi had not to react with all the shock she'd felt. She'd seen pictures of her, a few years before her memory wipe. She and Roman had traced her, found out that she'd been adopted by a loyal employee of one of Shepherd's business associates. But she'd been safe, and Remi and Shepherd had begun planning her infiltration of the FBI, so she'd pushed thoughts of her daughter away.

But now she indulged herself, taking a few minutes to study Avery's face, cataloging the changes between the awkward teenager she glimpsed and the near-adult who had visited her in the hospital. Avery had left to begin college a few days after Remi woke up. She'd offered to stay, to help take care of her mother and stepfather. Remi'd had to catch herself before she snorted. What were they, in their dotage now? But some part of her had been touched at the offer, even as she'd assured Avery that it wasn't necessary.

Near the end of the photos, several years in the past, she found the photos of Roman. He was sprawled on a sofa with a piece of pizza in his hand. He was making a face at the camera, and she knew she'd been the one who'd taken the picture. How many times had she seen that same smirk on his face over the years? She swallowed, trying to ignore the pang that went through her at his familiar grin.

Patterson had been the one to tell her the news, while she was still in the hospital, though she obviously believed Remi already know. "We made the arrangements," she said, obviously concerned about the toll the conversation would take on her. "I'm sorry—You were unconscious and Weller was in surgery and someone had to and—He was buried beside your parents, in a small cemetery not far from your family home."

Remi had kept her face completely impassive. She would never show these people how much she hurt.

"When you're feeling better," the blond told her, earnestly, so earnestly, "you can go back to South Africa. And—and see where they all are." She squeezed Remi's hand, and it was all Remi could do not to yank her arm away.

And that was another thing. Apparently she was dying, or at least her brain was. That explained why she'd lost so much time. She wondered idly if Shepherd had known the risks and kept them from her. Remi wouldn't be surprised; she would have done the same. The mission was all-important, more so than any one individual's health.

Roman had left her some information about the damage the ZIP had done, but not all of it. Patterson had assured her they were examining everything they had and looking for the rest. Remi's lips twisted up into a humorless smile. Sibling rivalry, it seemed, never died. Roman had never made anything easy in life. Why should he turn over a new leaf in death?

Of course, none of this explained how the FBI knew about Roman. Or South Africa or Alice or Remi. If her cover had been blown, why was she still here? Not only not in jail, but married to Weller and apparently still trusted by the FBI. Had he married her before he found out she wasn't Taylor Shaw? Wouldn't he have divorced her, once he'd found out she was lying about who she was? None of this made any sense, and the person who would have been able to explain it all to her was dead.

She shut off the phone with a flick of her thumb, hiding Roman's picture away. She had no time for illness or for the past. She had a mission to complete.

###

The need for information drove her, so the next time she'd dosed Weller with his pain pills, she swiped his phone from his nightstand, hoping there was something there that might help. His text history wasn't very illuminating, mostly brief messages from various members of the team with scant case details, or pictures of his daughter, sent by her mother. She didn't remember that he'd been dating Allie when she'd started the op, but Jane Doe must have done an effective job of breaking them up if Boy Scout Weller hadn't married his child's mother, a move that seemed out of character for him, to say the least.

His photo history was more of the same as the photo albums. Pictures of herself, of Bethany, of her with Avery. She lingered over one candid shot, in which both she and Avery were laughing, suddenly sad that she couldn't recall the reason for their mirth. She flipped past it and then stopped abruptly.

It was a picture of herself. She was sleeping on her stomach, face turned toward the camera, and she was quite obviously naked, although from the way she was sleeping, only her bare back and arms were visible. She'd studied her tattoos in great detail in the privacy of the bathroom, but her gaze had been more critical, trying to resolve each puzzle they represented. The rest of the time, she tried not to notice them, banishing any sense of loss for her clear, unmarked skin. She'd done this for a reason, and clearly her mission wasn't complete yet, if she was still here.

But this picture... this wasn't for FBI documentation or for a mission. It was just because the photographer thought she looked... beautiful. Even the chopped-off, messy hair that she despised seemed lovely, forming soft waves that framed her face, relaxed in sleep. Her lips were curled up ever so slightly, as if she were dreaming in her sleep.

Remi couldn't remember the last time she'd dreamed of happy things. She woke from nightmares from time to time, but even when she didn't, her sleep these days was restless, punctuated by images that she couldn't see fully nor understand if she could.

She swiped swiftly to the next photo, apparently taken right after the last. She was awake in this one, head slightly lifted from the pillow, revealing a crease in her cheek upon which she'd been resting. But it was the expression on her face that stopped her cold. Her eyes weren't fully open, giving the sense that she was still half asleep. But the look in her eyes radiated nothing but happiness, a mix of lazy contentedness, sexy playfulness, and... what looked like _love_.

She was a good actress, she congratulated herself. No wonder she had them all fooled. But a cold draft prickled down her spine, and she swiftly closed the apps she'd used and crept back into the bedroom to replace the phone on Weller's nightstand.

He was sprawled on his back on the right side of the bed, snoring slightly. She'd moved into the guest room vacated by Avery, telling him she didn't want to risk bumping into his still-healing wound while he was still recuperating. He hadn't argued, but she thought he'd looked a little sad. He still was asleep, the painkillers having done their job, but as she watched, his left hand stretched out, moving restlessly over the empty side of the bed. He mumbled something in his sleep, a garbled syllable that might have been "Jane."

She stifled a sigh. She needed him to stay asleep while she looked for something—anything—that might tell her where she stood in her plans. She leaned over and put her hand on his shoulder. His hand instantly stilled, his whole body relaxing into the chemically-induced slumber. She stood still for a few moments, feeling his chest rising and falling beneath her hand, warming her cold fingers. She cautiously withdrew her hand, relaxing only when he appeared to remain asleep.

She had to keep looking, so she could complete her mission and go back to her real life. Because whatever _this_ life was, it wasn't—it could never be— _real._

###

On their third day home from the hospital, Patterson came to visit in the morning, bringing them bagels for breakfast, along with groceries. Weller perked up a bit and made his way carefully from the bedroom to the kitchen table, where he demanded to be filled in on the information they'd found on the drive.

Remi kept quiet as they'd talked, careful not to reveal her increasing dismay. She couldn't remember anything about the tattoos they were discussing, couldn't summon a picture of them in her mind nor remember what puzzles they were meant to unlock. She would have blamed her faulty memory, but she also couldn't recall having seen any of these designs when she'd studied the patterns etched on her skin.

"Maybe I could come into the office for a bit," she suggested casually, "just to see what's on the drive."

Both Patterson and Weller frowned. "You need to take it easy," the blond intervened quickly, shooting a reassuring glance at Weller as she patted Remi's arm. "In a few days, when you're _both_ feeling better, you can come in for a few hours. But you know Reade was clear that you were both to take time off to rest and recuperate."

Remi couldn't give up that easily. "We don't know how much time I have," she said persuasively, suppressing a smile at the obvious worry immediately displayed on both of their faces. "If there's something I can do—"

"You're going to be _fine_ ," Patterson insisted fiercely. "We have some of the best medical minds in the FBI working on the data Roman gave us. We will figure out what's wrong with you, Jane, I promise."

Weller reached across the table and took Remi's hand in his. "You scared the hell out of me when you collapsed," he said quietly. "I know you hate this as much as I do, but I need you to be well as much as I need to get better myself."

She'd forced herself to smile and squeeze his fingers back, all the while seething with impatience inside.

###

That afternoon, while Weller slept off another pain pill, she resorted to watching the wedding video that she found on the shelf below the television set.

It was every bit as sappy as she'd expected, but still... if she hadn't known better, she would have sworn that this was a couple who was very much in love. She was a good actress, she knew. But even she couldn't quite believe the level to which she'd played that role. She looked so happy to be surrounded by those people, so blissful dancing with her husband, kissing him and feeding him cake.

It wasn't legal, she assured herself. Jane Doe was a fake name, a fake person with a fake marriage. None of it was at all real.

"Today is just... so perfect," her recorded image gushed.

Remi gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to fast-forward through the rest of the recording.

She'd learned nothing of value as the video made its way toward what she hoped was the end, when the recording was suddenly interrupted, and she found herself face to face with her brother. "Jane, you never thought happiness was in the cards for you, and, well, you were right. You're too broken, sis. Love just isn't in your DNA. And Weller, whatever you think you have with my sister, it's built on a foundation of lies. Someday you will feel the same pain I felt when she turned her back on me. I'm sorry to be a downer on your special day, I really am, but there's more pain coming. And there is nothing either of you can do to stop it."

Her fingers scrambled for the pause button, freezing his mocking smile mid-toast.

What the _hell?_

"You shouldn't watch that," said a raspy voice beside her, making her jump. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." Weller carefully eased himself down onto the sofa beside her.

She cursed internally. The video had run longer than she'd thought it would, and she'd lost track of time. She reached for the remote to shut it off, but her fumbling fingers encountered Weller's hand instead.

He squeezed her hand gently in his, just as he had at the table earlier. "I know it hurts to see him. He was still your brother, despite everything he did."

She tried to make sense of what she'd just seen. Roman would have known that she was pretending. He would have known that their marriage wasn't real. Was this an act for Weller's benefit?

She might have believed it, except that she knew she was the better actor of the two of them. The Roman in this video was too bitter, too angry to be pretending. His temper had always been his greatest flaw. When he was angry, he couldn't control his emotions, which usually meant risking his cover. She'd tried for years to break him of it, to no avail.

"Are you okay?" asked Weller quietly, and she realized with a start that he was still holding her hand, stroking his fingers soothingly up across her knuckles.

Being comforted was a foreign feeling. No one had ever comforted Remi, except Roman, in his own way. Not since she'd been Alice had anyone been gentle or tender with her feelings. Not that she would have let them. Comfort would never change the wrongs of the world. Only action could do that.

"I still... can't believe he's gone," she said, not untruthfully.

Weller nodded. "Even with everything he did, he was still your brother. It's okay to miss him."

She nodded her head jerkily, her eyes still fixed on the image frozen on the screen in front of her.

Weller let go of her hand, and for just a moment, she felt cold and abandoned. And then he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and drew her against his side. "It'll get easier," he whispered against her temple.

She forced herself to relax, allowing herself to curl in against his side as he clearly expected.

But she wasn't going to cry. She wasn't that weak.

So she closed her eyes, blocking out both the image on the television and the burning heat behind her eyelids.

It was the gurgling of Weller's stomach that woke her from her semi-dozing state some time later. She hadn't meant to drift off, but he'd been so warm and soothing that somehow she had. Her eyes flickered open to discover that Weller had both arms wrapped around her now, and both of her hands were resting on top of his. Her head was comfortably pillowed on his shoulder. The DVR had given up and shut off at some point, leaving the television screen mercifully blank, and the afternoon sun painted long shadows across the floor of the room.

"This is the most comfortable I've been in weeks," Weller murmured, his voice more of a vibration against her cheek, "but I'm getting hungry."

"And you're due for a pain pill," she told him, detaching herself as quickly as she could without seeming like she was hurrying and rising to her feet.

He scrunched up his face like a kid. "Damn things knock me on my ass," he complained.

She stifled an errant smile. In all the research that she'd done, he'd always looked so serious. Driven. She hadn't expected him to look kind of, well, _cute_ when he was out of sorts.

Not that she could disagree with him. She avoided pain medications for the same reason.

"You should still take it," she said. The sooner he recovered, the sooner he could go back into the office, and the sooner he was there, the sooner she could get in too.

She turned toward the kitchen as he fell into step beside her. His arm draped over her shoulders again. "Yes, ma'am," he said with suspect meekness.

She shot him a look out of the corner of her eye, pretty sure was teasing her. But he just smiled blandly at her. "Did Patterson bring me more of that beef stew?"

###

"You don't have to sleep in the guest room," he told her, after he'd eaten his stew and swallowed the pain pills she gave him.

She paused in the act of hanging up the kitchen towel. "Your stomach—I don't want to—"

"It will be fine, Jane." He smiled, his eyes crinkling in the corners. "I'm tougher than I look."

She just nodded, trying to keep her face blank as she concocted an excuse—nothing too obvious, something about his health? His restless sleeping? Or—

"I'm fine." He'd stopped front of her, and before she could register the moment, he ducked his face and kissed her, his hands coming up to hold her face gently in his fingertips.

His lips were soft and warm, the touch almost unbearably tender. She was so stunned that she was frozen for a second, and then her lips parted, so she could kiss him back.

He drew away a moment later, leaning his forehead against hers. "Damn drugs," he muttered. "I better lay down before I fall down."

"You should rest," she said, finding her voice, still off-kilter from the kiss, brief though it was.

"Not without you," he argued, a stubborn look in his eye, even though he seemed to be swaying slightly as he stood.

"All right, fine." She steered him toward the bedroom and helped him into the bed.

"I'm going to go brush my teeth," she said and escaped into the bathroom.

She needed him to get into the FBI, so if this was what it took to make him feel better, then this was what she had to do. The fact that his kiss had felt... familiar... was clearly just because she'd been undercover so long. She stared at her face in the mirror, the unfamiliar hair, the bird tattoo on her neck. She'd been married for two years, and it was pretty clear that her husband thought the marriage was real. So she'd done a helluva lot more than just exchange a chaste kiss.

 _Kurt Weller, there's a lot I want to say to you, but I was told to keep it PG-13, so I'll save the good stuff for our honeymoon,_ the stranger with her face had said in the wedding video.

She gulped. If she were being honest, she'd admit that she'd thought Weller was attractive when they were planning the mission. Not her type, of course— she liked her men more wiry, with personalities to match— but not unappealing, either. Shepherd had never explicitly ordered her to sleep with Weller, but Remi knew that "gain his confidence" left an awful lot of leeway. But they'd expected the mission to take no longer than a few months at most. Not _years._

She brushed her teeth slowly, hoping that he'd be well asleep by the time she got out there.

By the time she emerged from the bathroom, Weller seemed to be out like a light. She turned off the lamp on his nightstand, then circled around the bed to crawl in on the other side. But as soon as she put her weight on the mattress, he stirred and reached his arm out in an unmistakable invitation. She drew a deep breath, and then stretched out beside him, resting her head lightly on his shoulder.

"That's better," he mumbled, hugging her close. "Night." She felt him press a kiss to the top of her head.

"Night," she whispered.

She'd scoot away, she told herself, as soon as he fell asleep. Unless… Did he sleep like this with Jane? Then he'd expect her to stay. Her thoughts seemed so muddled now. At least he was comfortable. And so was she. She felt… safe, she thought muzzily, and felt herself drifting away before she could tell herself how ridiculous that was.


	2. Chapter 2

Allie and Bethany came to visit two days later.

Remi opened the door to them, Kurt following more slowly behind. As soon as Allie set Bethany on her feet, the toddler made a beeline for her father. "Daddeeeee!"

Kurt crouched down on the floor, arms open to his daughter, but Bethany stopped just shy of his grasp. Then she got down in her own diminutive crouch, a small mirror reflection of her father. With a look of intense concentration, she leaned forward and placed an extremely gentle kiss on his stomach. "Aww bedder?" she asked, looking up at him.

Kurt nodded, making no effort to hide the tears in his eyes. "All better, baby. Thank you."

Bethany nodded solemnly and allowed her father to pull her in for a hug.

And a moment later, Remi found herself the recipient of a similarly fierce hug from Allie.

"It's so good to see you. We've been so worried about you both," she said, squeezing Remi tight.

Remi patted her back, at a loss for what else to do. Somehow she hadn't thought that Jane would be on very good terms with Allie. Judging by Bethany's age, Kurt must have broken things off with Allie right before he'd married Jane.

But nothing about Allie indicated any strain or discomfort. Quite the opposite really, as she released Remi and started to pepper her with questions about both her and Kurt's health.

"I'm fine," Remi insisted. And aside from the occasional headache, she was. She hadn't fainted once since she'd woken up in the hospital, and part of her was beginning to wonder if maybe Roman had exaggerated the symptoms listed on the drive. Maybe he'd wanted Remi to pretend to be sick for some reason? What if she'd collapsed for some reason other than ZIP?

"I'm almost all healed," Kurt told Allie, climbing slowly to his feet.

Remi rolled her eyes. She'd helped him change the bandage on his incision earlier. It looked better, but was by no means "healed." Allie met her gaze with a similarly exasperated expression, and they both broke into spontaneous smiles.

Remi had expected a much more formal exchange, and she felt even further out of her depth than normal. And a moment later, Bethany compounded the issue by flinging herself at Remi's knees.

"Mama Jane!" she announced. She couldn't quite make the "J" sound, so it sounded more like "Dane." And for a second, Remi just froze, looking down at the small imp who had her in a surprisingly tight grasp.

Should she crouch down like Kurt? Pick the child up? She felt paralyzed. She'd figured that Kurt would play with Bethany while she gave them some time alone. She hadn't envisioned that Bethany would expect to interact with her, too.

Even worse, before she could force herself to do anything, Kurt picked up on her distress. He stepped forward and put his hand on top of Bethany's head. "Hey, B, there might be a few new toys for you in the living room. Mommy can help you get them out of the cabinet."

Bethany scampered off, followed by Allie, leaving them alone by the door.

"It's okay," Kurt whispered, putting his arms around her.

Remi allowed him to pull her closer, trying to figure out what she'd missed.

"We're gonna try again," he said firmly, his mouth by her ear so that Allie and Bethany couldn't hear him. "Just as soon as we figure out what's going on with your condition, we're going to try again. I promise. We're going to have one of our own."

Their own what? And then her brain caught up. A baby? He thought they were going to try to have a baby? Try _again?_ Remi fought back a burst of hysterical laughter. This was insane. She would never have gone so far as to actually conceive a child in this fake marriage.

And then she realized that it was more likely that _Kurt_ wanted a child, and Jane had pretended that she did too. But lots of women had trouble conceiving, and sadly, Jane must be one of them.

She exhaled slowly, the tension leaving her body as she reasoned it all through. She nodded her head against Kurt's chest, putting her arms around him to return his hug. "Yeah. Soon."

He nodded and kissed her forehead. "Very soon." He rubbed her back and then let her go, but he kept his hand on her waist as they turned into the living room to visit with Allie and Bethany.

Remi forced a smile to her lips. This mission had gone on long enough. She needed to get it back on track before Weller got serious about any baby-making.

###

They were cleared to return to the FBI the following week. Desk jobs for both of them, but at that point they were both so desperate to get out of the apartment, neither one of them was going to voice any argument at all.

But whatever Remi had expected, the reality was far, far different.

Reade was the Assistant Director now. She had thought he was just filling in while Weller was out, but apparently no, it was actually his office, not Weller's. Agent Zapata was gone to parts unknown. No one mentioned her, and Remi wondered if maybe she'd been killed. And Rich Dotcom was working in the lab with Patterson.

Remi'd never met him, but Shepherd had purchased information from him through the dark web on more than one occasion. Remi remembered the tattoo that pointed to him. Ashwell Creek Kennels. She'd never wasted any time imagining what he'd be like in person, but even if she had, there's no way she could have come up with this.

He came running over to hug Kurt, a bright flash in a garish Hawaiian shirt. "Oh god, I've missed you, Stubbles." He let go, pivoted, and grabbed Remi. "We're working on your case, no stone unturned, no hot doctor unconsulted." He let go abruptly and stepped back. "You guys look good. All that time in bed must have agreed with you."

Remi blinked. For a second, she thought she'd misunderstood, but then he leered at her. She shot him her most quelling look, the one that never failed to make men back off. But Rich perked up and grinned happily at her. "I missed you, too. Come see what we've got!" He stepped back so they could gather around Patterson's table screen.

Patterson didn't waste any time, launching into a detailed explanation of the clues they'd found on the drive and how they connected to the tattoos. Remi still didn't recognize any of them, but no one seemed concerned that the tattoos they were discussing weren't actually anywhere on her body. It wasn't until the blond said something about "overlaying" that she realized there was a second level of tattoos, ones that for some reason she couldn't see, but that corresponded to the original tattoos.

What the hell?

"Jane?" Kurt was beside her in an instant, grabbing her arm and steering her into the seat that Rich rolled over to her.

"I'm fine," she said quickly. "Just a little lightheaded for a moment. Keep going."

But Rich and Patterson immediately switched gears to question her about any symptoms she had, and the tattoos on the screen were immediately replaced by medical notes. Remi tried to follow, but she was still off-balance at the revelation that she'd been tattooed again, with some sort of invisible ink, and that Roman was apparently behind it. This hadn't been part of their plans.

But then, neither was marrying Weller and staying with the FBI for _years_.

"Anyway," Patterson was saying, "I know it doesn't seem like much, Jane, but we're still putting this all together. Roman believed that this could be fixed, and we do too. We'll get there."

Remi nodded. It had been easier to pretend nothing was wrong when she'd been cooped up in the apartment with Weller. Physically, she felt fine. And she'd talked herself into believing that the whole illness was some sort of clever trick on Roman's part. But the research on the screen starkly proclaimed a different story, one backed up by the doctors Patterson and Rich had already consulted.

Kurt had moved to stand behind her when she sat down, and she realized now that his hand was her shoulder, his thumb rubbing her collarbone reassuringly. And she was leaning back against him, accepting his wordless support. She didn't pull away. Not because it felt comforting, just because a room full of FBI agents would have picked up on the motion. That was all.

When Patterson had finished debriefing them, Remi followed Kurt to a row of workstations so they could review the new data in greater depth. Reade called Weller away almost immediately to review some other report, and as soon as he was out of sight, Remi called up her own case file.

It was huge. She began to skim it as quickly as she could, starting from the beginning. Her discovery in Times Square, Dr. Borden's report and assignment to the NYO, everything seemed to go according to plan. She frowned when she got to the break in at her safehouse and the man who had been killed, later identified Markos. Markos was dead? She frowned. He shouldn't have been there at all. She kept reading, pausing again when she got to Cade's attempt on her life. She'd never trusted him, but she'd had tolerated him because Markos had trusted him.

And then she got to the point where Kurt arrested her. And then there was a three-month gap, during which nothing had been entered in her case file at all. The next section stated simply that she had escaped a CIA black site and had been tracked down by the team. She hadn't given them any intel at all. She smirked at the screen, but her smug expression faded into horror at the statement she— _Jane_ —had given to the FBI and NSA. Dear god, she'd told them _everything_. Including…

She had to read the paragraph about Oscar twice. He'd tried to erase her memory _again?_ And she'd killed him. Because of _Mayfair?_ Why would she have been that concerned about Bethany Mayfair? She'd been corrupt, part of Carter's Daylight program. She'd had to go. Not Oscar. She couldn't have killed him on purpose. It must have been an accident. She must have been lying. But the rest of the plan was all there in black and white…

She filed away her grief and loss, pushing Oscar and Markos into the same box as Roman. She had no time for mourning.

And then she read about meeting Roman and discovering her true identity. And somehow she'd promised to help the FBI _stop Shepard?_ None of that made any sense. She'd really been playing the FBI, she must have been. She'd led the FBI to the compound where they were killed in the raid. Only then she'd injected Roman with ZIP and brought him to the FBI? And then… Roman had remembered and fought her, and then Shepherd had made her move on the FBI… and she'd helped Weller disarm the bombs. And Roman had left with Shepherd. And then she'd help the FBI thwart Phase 2 and arrest Shepherd. And then the FBI had released her.

Her cover was finished, Phase 2 was finished. Shepherd was gone. She shook her head. It was all gone.

The next note in her file simply noted her change in marital status and an address change to Colorado. She'd married Weller and they'd moved to Colorado. That was where Allie, Bethany, and Allie's husband apparently lived.

And then the tale resumed. There was a hit ordered on her. She left Colorado, vanished for nearly eighteen months before a box bearing her name was delivered to the NYO. Weller had found her at the given coordinates. The new tattoos were explained and catalogued. Roman had done that to her? Or was it a plan to return her to the FBI?

Because if it wasn't… Then she'd abandoned Roman and her mission and changed her loyalties completely.

She scrubbed her hands over her face, feeling like this was all some nightmare that she should be able to wake up from.

"Jane? Are you okay?"

Remi looked up to find Patterson hovering over her. "I'm fine. Just a little tired. There's a lot…" Her voice trailed off.

Patterson nodded. "Just take it slow. You don't want to overdo it."

Overdo it. What she wanted was to _do it over_ , change the story so the good guys won. But there didn't seem to be any way to do that. At least… not yet.

"Weller sent me to tell you that he's still stuck in his meeting so I should make sure you ate something. Low blood sugar could trigger something with your brain chemistry."

Remi stood up before Patterson could launch into another long medical lecture. "You've convinced me. Let's get some lunch."

###

She escaped to the gym late in the day. Sitting at a desk in the FBI was better than sitting on the sofa in Weller's apartment, but not much. Such forced inactivity was driving her crazy.

Almost as crazy as it was driving Weller.

She'd been cleared for most activities. Except, most annoyingly, driving, due to the risk that she might pass out while behind the wheel. Weller had been cleared for… walking at a sedate pace on the treadmill. She could almost see steam coming out of his ears as she stretched following a solid thirty minutes at the punching bag, getting out as much of her frustrations as she could.

She didn't know what made her cross over to hop on the machine next to him, immediately cranking up the pace to a brisk jog.

"Show off," he muttered, glaring at her.

His look was so aggrieved that she threw her head back and laughed, coaxing a rueful smile out of him.

Weller was an easy person to be around, she had to admit. She felt… comfortable with him. Which made no sense. She was on a mission, and this was just a cover.

A cover she'd apparently kept for _years._

She stared blindly ahead of her as she ran, still trying to sort out the information she'd read in her file that morning. Something must have gone wrong, that's all she could figure out. Something had gone wrong, and she'd had to abandon the plan. Maybe the FBI had gotten too close, and she'd done damage control, allowing Shepherd to live and Roman to escape. Waiting for the opportunity to resume their plans. Maybe running away from Colorado had been part of a plan to get Weller to relocate to New York, so she could resume her mission. Perhaps she hadn't been able to make progress on her own, that's why Roman had sent the box to Weller, so he could "find" her and bring her back. There'd been a passing reference to K&R work she'd done while she was supposedly on the run. Another cover? She wished she knew.

But none of this gave her any hint about the best way to move forward _now_.

She shot a look out of the corner at her eye at Weller, who was still pacing slowly beside her, his attention now on the news report running on the television in the gym.

It had been dangerously easy to settle into living with him, sleeping curled up next to him at night. She didn't know why, but the strange, unsettling images that had haunted her when she tried to sleep in the guest room were gone now. She slept soundly and woke up feeling refreshed.

And inevitably wrapped up in Weller's arms.

He always smiled as soon as he saw her when he awoke. A broad, lazy, sleepy smile that said he was just happy she was there. And then he'd kiss her nose or her forehead or sometimes her lips before he let her wriggle free to use the bathroom.

It unnerved her, that smile. She could never remember anyone—not even Oscar, if she was honest—being so unfailingly happy at her mere presence.

And it made her more aware of the… other aspects of marriage that she'd put off thus far.

Sometimes those morning kisses were slower. More open-mouthed. And sometimes they felt almost dreamy and unreal, seeming to flow from some dream she didn't remember having, awakening feelings she shouldn't be having.

He kissed her outside of bed, too, but those kisses were easier for her to stop before they could go too far. He'd shift and wince or she'd pull away and express worry for his still-healing incision. But in bed… In bed, it was harder to resist.

She took a large gulp from her water bottle and cranked up the speed on the treadmill to try to out run such disquieting thoughts. Beside her, Weller shot her a pouty look that made her lips curl up despite her efforts to remain unmoved.

She needed to get her mission back on track. And if that meant…

Well, she would do what she had to do.


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's Note: Ahoy, smut ahead. I've changed the rating on this to M. This chapter is NSFW._

 _You've been warned. And yet you're still reading. So naughty!_

* * *

They cracked a tattoo on Friday. Or rather, Patterson's database did, using the new information they'd gotten from Roman's drive. It had led them to a DA who had systematically destroyed evidence—and silenced several witnesses—that proved a Senator had been rewarding generous campaign donors with "gifts" of underage girls.

The girls involved were barely younger than Avery, and Remi was filled with anger and disgust at a political system that enabled such corruption to occur. This was what she'd been fighting with Shepherd.

This was why she had to figure out how to salvage this mission, even with Phase Two now off the table.

Neither Remi nor Weller were cleared for field work yet, so another team went out to make the arrests. It went fairly smoothly, but she didn't really relax until they were all back at the NYO and the guilty parties were in custody.

She didn't know these agents. She'd researched Weller's team thoroughly when they were planning this mission, but Reade had stayed in the office today, and with Tasha gone and Weller still recuperating, there was no one left to head up the CIRG team. These new agents were an unknown quantity, and she was going to have to take time to check up on each one of them. She couldn't afford to overlook anyone who might have connections to Orion.

It was beyond frustrating to be stuck in the NYO while an FBI team was out in the field. Only the fact that Weller had been seething with impatience all day, too, made such inactivity tolerable. She felt an odd camaraderie with him that she chalked up to their unbearably intimate living arrangements. A situation that was making it almost impossible to slip away and determine her next course of action.

She'd snuck out on the pretext of picking up coffee and donuts for the team and purchased a burner phone that she'd secreted away in the apartment. But her messages to Hobbes had gone unanswered, and although she'd found nothing in the FBI database about him, she worried that he was gone too. She knew that the bulk of Shepherd's forces had escaped arrest, but without Shepherd or her or Roman or Oscar or Markos, or even Nigel or Parker… who was left to take charge? She would have to figure out how to contact the others, reorganize them and get them back on track.

But what that meant exactly, she still didn't know. Mayfair was gone. So were Pellington and Hirst. Reade was in charge of the NYO. She didn't recall anything too damning about him in the intel they'd assembled on the team. Could he be trusted to lead the FBI as they had thought Weller could? If not, he'd have to go, but not yet. Not until Weller was able to take over again. She had no sway over Reade as she did Weller, so she would have to tread carefully if he remained.

But she had to admit, as she watched the team wrap up the case, that it still seemed as if her judgment had been solid. For all the corruption that she was certain still lurked in the FBI, this team seemed to have the integrity she'd hoped when they had first planned this mission. Because ultimately no outside army would ever be able to rout out Orion and the rest of the tentacles that snaked through the tops of all the government intelligence agencies. They could take out people in positions of power, but more would always rise to take their place. That was why she'd needed to be inside the FBI, to steer them into cleaning up their own house, from within the confines of the legal process.

"You ready to go?" asked Weller, stopping beside her, his hand resting familiarly on her lower back. "I'm starving."

She nodded and fell into step beside him. "How was your check-up?" she asked. He'd gone down to see the FBI doctor during a break in the action that afternoon.

"Still can't go into the field. But I can stop the pain meds and get more exercise, as long as I don't overdo it." His grin was so broad she couldn't help but return it.

She was still frustrated by being out of the field, but her doctors wanted another week of monitoring at the NYO before they cleared her.

"And more importantly," Weller continued, jabbing the elevator button, "I can finally have a beer."

"And pizza," she said. "With pepperoni."

Weller turned toward her, a funny expression on his face. "Not eating vegan anymore?"

Jane had been _vegan_? Remi resisted the urge to roll her eyes. That was taking the whole undercover thing too damn far. But at least that explained all the vegetable soups and meatless Indian dishes Patterson had brought her while they'd been out.

"I'm, uh, taking a break. The doctor didn't want me to limit my diet until they figure out…"

"Right." Weller nodded, taking her hand as they stepped into the elevator.

She'd figured out quickly that any mention of her medical "condition" freaked him out and made it easy to deflect the conversation.

He squeezed her hand gently in his. "Then beer and pizza it is."

They ate on the sofa, in front of the television, tuned to a hockey game that held Weller's attention far more than hers. She'd downed two beers with her pizza, then moved on to the bottle of wine from the counter in the kitchen. It had been opened at some point, weeks ago now, but she wasn't drinking for flavor at this point. She'd gulped half the glass and refilled it before she left the kitchen, returning to the sofa beside him.

"There's more beer in the fridge," he said, when he saw the glass she held.

"This is fine," she said.

He'd stretched his arm across the back of the sofa when she sat down, and he curled it around her shoulders now. She scooted closer, as she knew he expected her to, and sipped her wine while he watched the game, too conscious of the tips of his fingers tracing a pattern along her upper arm to focus on the screen.

She leaned forward to place her empty glass on the table, and when she straightened, she found he'd leaned forward, too. And it just felt natural that as she sat back, he shifted his weight toward her, and their lips met in the middle.

This wasn't like the soft, chaste kisses they'd exchanged over the past few days, or even the softer, deeper kisses in the half-awake early morning light. This kiss was charged, heated with the promise of things to come.

And it was both better and worse than she'd expected, because there was a sense of familiarity, of coming home that she hadn't anticipated. Somewhere inside was the realization that she'd done this before—and even worse, that she wanted to do it again.

She deliberately deepened the kiss. She wanted to get through this before the wine buzz wore off. It wasn't the first time she'd used sex to forget who or where she was. She didn't want to think. She wanted to feel hot and frantic, to focus only on how she felt.

Only Weller refused to be rushed. His lips moved slowly against hers as though she were a dessert he wanted to savor. One hand slid slowly up into her hair, his thumb caressing gentle circles on the skin behind her ear. He reclined slowly against the back of the sofa, pulling her with him with a palm pressed to her spine.

She put her hands on his shoulders, careful not to allow herself to lean against his incision. Hoping that leaving a little bit of space between them might help her to retain some sense of perspective.

It didn't help. She told herself the dizzy feeling was just the wine, and then decided it was better to stop thinking altogether. Because even if her brain wasn't wholly on board with this, it was more than clear that her body was.

She allowed her eyes to drift shut and just feel. The way her mouth opened helplessly against his, inviting him in, his tongue tangling with hers. The way his hand stroked the knobs of her spine, then curled around the back of her hip, pulling her closer to him.

He tugged at the back of her shirt, untucking it from her pants, and then his hand resumed its leisurely path up her spine, this time with no fabric to dull the electricity that seemed to arc beneath his fingertips wherever he touched her skin.

She made a tiny noise in the back of her throat, and the hand in her hair pulled her even closer, his mouth more demanding on hers. Or maybe it was she who was demanding. She wasn't entirely sure anymore.

His fingers drifted around to her front, fingertips trailing a scorching pass across her ribs until he could cup her breast through the fabric of her bra. She arched into his touch, and he stroked his thumb, slowly and deliberately, across her nipple.

She tried to retaliate, trailing her fingers down his chest to the bulge straining at the front of his jeans, but he caught her hand in his.

"We should move this to the bedroom," he murmured, lifting his lips only far enough that they still brushed against hers when he spoke.

But she didn't want to stand up and acknowledge what was going to happen. It was easier here, where she could just pretend it was an alcohol-fueled moment of weakness. So she leaned away, just far enough to pull her shirt over her head, followed a moment later by the sports bra she had on underneath.

She watched with satisfaction as his gaze grew hazy with desire, and his hands moved slowly to trace the patterns on her skin from her waist, across her ribs, to tease her with the most agonizingly light brushes across her nipples.

She tried to put her hands over his, to urge him on, but he caught her hand in his, tugging her toward him until she raised up on her knee and he could press his lips in the valley between her breasts.

She made a small, frustrated noise, and felt the gust of his chuckle against her too-hot skin as he took his time, nuzzling her and placing soft, damp kisses across her breasts, everywhere except the nipples that were aching for his touch. And then he turned his head slightly, and took her nipple into his mouth, sending a jolt of electricity through her that she felt all the way to her core. He caressed her with lips and tongue and teeth until she was clutching at the back of his head with one hand and bracing herself against the back of the sofa with the other.

And no matter how she tried to hurry him, to satisfy the fire that he'd lit inside of her, he refused to rush, moving unhurriedly to pay homage across every bit of her exposed skin, pausing to pay special attention to extra sensitive spots even she hadn't known were there.

She reached for the hem of his shirt, trying to pull it up so she could touch his skin, and her fingertips brushed over the fabric of the bandage, smaller than it had been, but still covering a large portion of his stomach. She drew back then, not wanting to hurt him. "Off," she mumbled, tugging at his shirt.

He obliged, pulling it over his head, and shuddered as her hands traced his chest.

Their remaining clothing was shed in short order, but even then, his hands were slow and unhurried, touches that brought her close but held back what she needed most.

She pushed him down, flat on the sofa, so she could straddle him, but his hands resumed their torments, quickly stealing away the illusion of control that being on top gave her, as she reached down to guide him inside.

They exhaled together as she sank down on him, until they were joined as close as they could be.

She tried to move, but he gripped her hip in his hand, holding her still. With his other hand, he reached up to brush her hair away from her face, tucking an errant curl behind her ear.

"I love you," he said softly.

And she froze. Because this wasn't mindless sex anymore. He was making love to her, and she—she—

She didn't know what she was doing anymore.

So she leaned down and pressed her lips against his. Because things made the most sense when they weren't talking or thinking.

And because she couldn't bear to lie to him.

His grip on her hip loosened, so she could move against him, could set the pace she needed to give her the oblivion she craved.

She could tell when he got close, and knew that he was holding back, to make sure that she reached the peak first. And she felt suddenly angry then, that he was being so careful with her when he should just be using her as she was using him. She used her body to urge his on, tightening her muscles around him, driving him until she felt him shuddering beneath her, and only then gave in to her own satisfaction.

She sagged back onto her arms, rather than collapsing forward on his chest. She told herself it was to avoid putting any pressure on his injury, but it also prevented him from holding her. It seemed somewhat pointless to avoid that final intimacy, but drawing a line somewhere in her mind that she would not cross made her feel infinitesimally better.

She shivered, as much from the perspiration cooling on her skin as from the gentle circles his hand was tracing on her thigh.

" _Now_ can we go to bed?" he asked, a teasing tone to his sexy grumble as he smiled up at her.

And she couldn't help herself from smiling back. His lightness restored a bit of the equilibrium she'd lost. It was just sex. Between two consenting adults. Who were _married_ , for heaven's sake.

She couldn't allow herself to see it as anything more than that.

# # #

"So we still don't know where Blake Crawford is," Remi said flatly, staring at the collage of data arrayed on the screens in Patterson's lab.

"No," said the Patterson. "Not yet. But we will."

"We need to build the same type of case against her that we did with her father," said Reade. "Right now we don't have any evidence that she was involved with his plans."

"And we don't have Roman on the inside anymore, helping us to gather intel." There was a sad look in Patterson's eye that Remi chalked up to the shortage of intel. In the brief period of time Roman had spent with the FBI, he'd spent most of it locked up in a cell by the FBI. In her experience, no one felt sentimental about the death of a prisoner.

"She killed Roman." Remi crossed her arms over her chest.

"We don't have any proof, Jane," said Weller gently. "We have no witnesses and no murder weapon."

"You have her cell phone arriving at the scene of the crime, then departing minutes before I arrived," Remi said coldly. "There was no one else present when I arrived, and I didn't pass any other cars on the road in." She'd read the report Jane had submitted very carefully. On this point, she and her forgotten self were in complete agreement: Blake Crawford had somehow discovered Roman's deception and had put a bullet in his stomach in retribution.

Patterson and Reade exchanged glances. "We can't arrest her on that alone," said Reade. "Any judge would throw the charge right out. We need to find something else, some evidence that she was part of her father's plans."

Remi said nothing. Blake's fate was sealed as far as Remi was concerned. Yes, her father's empire would be dismantled. But Blake herself wasn't going to be given any opportunity to defend herself in court. Remi was going to kill her first, just as she had Hank. People like the Crawfords didn't deserve the chance to go free. She would wait until the FBI found Blake, and then she would take care of the matter herself.

Weller touched her back gently, and she realized the briefing was over. She nodded without making eye contact and escaped as quickly as she could out into the bullpen. He didn't follow, turning back to ask Patterson a question.

She dropped into the chair in front of the workstation she had claimed as her own, impatient to get back to her investigation. It had been a relief to come back to the NYO this morning. Here things made sense to her. Or at least, they made more sense than being alone with Weller did.

She stared unseeingly at the monitor in front of her. It wasn't that the weekend had been awful. The opposite really. They'd spent most of their time in bed. Partly because Weller was still recovering, and his first full week in the office had tired him out more than he would admit. But also because… they hadn't wanted to get out of bed. _Weller_ , she corrected herself. _Weller_ hadn't wanted to get out of bed. And Remi had to maintain her cover. And so…

Part of her wished that the sex had been bad, a chore that she had to endure to remind herself that sacrifices were necessary in pursuit of greater goals. It would be so much easier that way.

But it wasn't. Weller was a patient and generous lover, which would have been good without anything else. But there was another level she didn't know how to resist. It was scary how well he knew her body. He knew better than she did what turned her on, where her skin was most sensitive, which touch would send her over the edge.

And that wasn't even the worst part. In her experience, sex was fast and furious, a way to blow off steam during too-brief moments of downtime. Satisfaction yes, but once the goal was achieved, you moved on. Sex with Weller was… different. Endless, languid caresses that continued long after desire had been sated. She wasn't used to sex like this, slow and leisurely, as though the rest of the world had ceased to exist. Drowsy mornings and lazy afternoons until only the grumbling of stomachs could rouse them from their bed. Sleeping tangled up in each other.

Remi was _not_ a cuddler. She was a light sleeper, and she didn't like to be touched while she was sleeping. Oscar had always made fun of the way she pushed him away after sex so she could sleep face-down on the other side of the bed. But with Weller…. Even if she consciously moved away from him as she dozed off, she always woke up curled around him. Holding on to him, the same way he never let go of her.

And it was that, more than the flashes of memory that made no sense, that made her wonder her lost years had been like. Had she really abandoned everything—her family, her convictions—for this?

It was frighteningly easy to see how it might have been so.

She gave her head a hard shake. Whatever had happened before was irrelevant. She was here now, and she had a mission to complete. She reached for the keyboard and went back to work.


	4. Chapter 4

"Remi—Jane—don't make the same mistake I did. Don't destroy the thing you love. See, you don't know it now, but you need him. If he dies, you die with him." Shepherd's voice echoed through the ear buds Remi wore.

Her own voice followed. "I want you to take a good long look at me, because this is the last time you'll ever see either of your children again. It's none of your concern what happens to us now. You lost that privilege when you stole our childhoods, not to mention my child."

Remi tapped on the pause button on the screen, freezing the playback from the interrogation room.

She wasn't entirely sure what she'd hoped to find, but whatever it was, this wasn't it.

She'd never forgiven Shepherd for taking her baby. But she'd learned—as her mother had taught her—to compartmentalize. To separate emotion from practicality. She'd learned to equate love with weakness, so she'd put aside her feelings of pain and loss to focus on what had to be done. She'd joined the military to escape Shepherd, but when she realized that her own government was corrupt, she'd re-joined her mother's cause.

And for what? The plan had failed. Shepherd was in jail. Oscar was dead. And so was Roman.

She closed her eyes against the crushing pain of loss.

 _If he dies, you die with him._ Only she hadn't. She was alive. And she was alone.

She refused to allow herself to look across the bullpen to Reade's office, where Weller was currently engaged in a meeting. Weller didn't count. He was part of her cover. He wasn't really her partner, wasn't really in love with her, because the person he loved didn't exist.

She had no room for regret. She was here to complete a mission. That was all. When it was done, she'd walk away and leave Weller behind.

And then she'd truly be alone.

Unbidden, the thought of the brief but fierce hug Avery had given her before she left surfaced in Remi's mind. She had her daughter back. She'd missed out on so many years, but she had her back. Somehow she had to figure out how to hold on to her daughter this time, no matter how things ended with Weller and the FBI. She couldn't bear the thought of losing Avery again. Hadn't she lost enough?

Her gaze returned to the frozen picture of her adoptive mother.

The CIA hid their prisoners very well. Even if she could find Shepherd, breaking her out would be no easy task, and certainly not one she could accomplish alone.

Did she need Shepherd? She'd never had to ask that question before. Shepherd had always been there, a force to be reckoned with in Remi's life. Phase Two had been Shepherd's brainchild, but Phase Two was over, so Remi needed to make a new plan. She could do that without Shepherd's help.

But she would need money and manpower to carry out a new plan. Shepherd's troops would have scattered when she was arrested, and it would be hard to persuade her financial contacts to gamble on another operation. She'd focus on bodies and a plan for now, and worry about the money later.

"Jane?"

She came back to herself with a start and looked up at Patterson, who had materialized beside Remi's workstation.

"Sorry, I zoned out for a minute."

Patterson frowned. "Why are you watching that?" She gestured at the screen.

Remi forced herself to shrug. "I don't know. She knew Roman so well, maybe I should talk to her—"

"That is for sure a really bad idea." Patterson regarded Remi worriedly.

"She might have some idea where Roman hid the drives—" Remi tried again.

Patterson's face softened, and she reached out to squeeze Remi's arm. "I'm sorry. I know this is hard, having to spend every day looking at what he left behind for you. But even if we could get Keaton to bring Shepherd in here again, she wouldn't help you, Jane. She'd just mess with your head. You know that."

Remi forced herself to nod.

"We will find them, Jane. I promise." The concern in Patterson's eyes was too intense to be feigned, and Remi was struck once again by how much not only Weller, but the whole team seemed concerned about her condition.

Remi shrugged. "Maybe. Roman could be difficult." _That was an understatement._ "We spent months looking for him, but we never really caught him." Because Blake had killed him before they could.

"Roman gave you that first drive, Jane. He _wanted_ you to find them. He wanted you to get better."

Remi tilted her head and regarded Patterson curiously. "Do you really believe that?"

"I do." There was no hesitation in her reply.

"He ordered hits on all of us."

Patterson grimaced. "Yeah, but honestly… he would have known that they were likely to fail. We're hard to kill, right?" She grinned unexpectedly.

 _I could kill you in a heartbeat_. But that certainty was accompanied by a tiny bit of relief that she wouldn't have to. At least not yet. She steeled herself. She couldn't afford to get attached to the FBI team, any more than she could let herself feel anything for Weller.

"You said yourself that he only did it because he fell in love with Blake," Patterson continued. "Up until then, he was trying to help us."

So what had changed? Was it all a subterfuge? Or had Roman really fallen for Blake, so much so that he was willing to throw away his mission, throw away _his own sister_ for Blake? Some kind of reverse Stockholm Syndrome?

She couldn't believe that he would do that. Because if he could, if Roman could leave everything that he loved and valued behind to become Tom… then maybe Remi really _had_ believed she was Jane.

# # #

She found the tattoo two days later.

She'd spent hours combing through the data in the original tattoo database, the new database, and the information on the drive that Roman had given her. She was midway through the last when she recognized one of the tattoos on the drive as one that they'd removed from the first round of tattoos, before she'd been left in Times Square. The image pointed to someone in the Justice Department who'd been accepting bribes from a venture capitalist. Said financier had thrown his support behind Shepherd's organization a few weeks before the mission, so they'd deleted this tattoo from the final design.

There was no guarantee that he'd be willing to help Remi, but she couldn't risk the FBI getting to him before she had time to formulate a plan. With a few clicks of the mouse, she erased the tattoo from the new database. She deleted it from the backup as well, and immediately edited the system log file to erase any record of her actions.

And then she went back to trying to figure out what had happened to Shepherd's troops.

Her phone calls to Hobbes remained unanswered, and it was looking more and more like she was entirely on her own now. She couldn't give up. She owed it to the people who had given their lives or their freedom to this cause to see it through. To Roman and Oscar and Markos and Parker and Shepherd and Thornton… The sheer number of names she could put on that list overwhelmed her.

When she'd exhausted the databases, she moved on to checking traffic and surveillance cameras near properties that Shepherd had used. They had always maintained well-stocked backup locations they could shift to if their headquarters became compromised. It was a long shot, but maybe some of her compatriots were still using one of those locations.

Most of them appeared to be dead ends. Abandoned properties with no activity visible on any CCTV in the area. She'd just about given up when she got to the last one, a warehouse outside Brooklyn. The exterior looked just as run-down and neglected as the others, but traffic cameras showed cars and trucks approaching and departing, and satellite images showed tire tracks outside the large garage bays.

It was definitely worth checking out, but she was going to have to ditch her FBI babysitters, who were watching her all too closely for signs that the ZIP poisoning was progressing. She kept assuring them that she was fine, but Patterson and Rich were practically breathing down her neck all day, watching her for any sign of illness. She never mentioned the headaches that came and went. They weren't debilitating, and she didn't want to invite any more poking and prodding.

Figuring out how to get away from Weller was going to be the hardest task. He barely let her out of his sight as it was. And although his constant worrying over her health was annoying, it was also kind of… sweet. No one had every worried over Remi before. The opposite, really: Illness was a sign of weakness, and weakness was to be avoided at all costs. She and Roman had always gone out of their way to ignore any injury or illness the other might be suffering from, to avoid drawing anyone else's attention to it. It felt strange to have someone else so concerned about her. Strange and… oddly nice, if inconvenient.

The following morning, she deliberately skipped her morning workout, telling Weller she needed to get to work early to finish something she'd been working on with Patterson. They were busy all day, chasing down tattoo clues that hadn't panned out. They had both finally been cleared for field work, and by the time they got back to the NYO, Weller's face was gray with exhaustion.

"You look beat," she told him bluntly, as they paused in the hallway outside the locker room.

"You say the sweetest things," he replied, but his smile was lost in the lines of pain that bracketed his mouth.

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. The man was impossible. But if she were being honest, she'd admit that she was worried about him. She knew him well enough by now to know that he would downplay any discomfort. They were alike in that regard, she supposed. But she needed him healthy and working at the FBI, which meant that she couldn't allow him to reinjure himself. That was the only possible reason for the oddly protective urge she had to take him home and tuck him into bed.

"Are you ready to go?" His large hand cupped her shoulder blade as his arm curved around her.

She leaned into him automatically. "I was going to go work out," she told him with just the right amount of regret in her voice. "But you should go home before you fall down. Are you up for cooking dinner or should I grab something for us on my way home?"

As she'd expected, his spine straightened slightly. "I can cook something. I'm not that tired. Maybe I'll go work out too."

 _Definitely not_. She leaned closer and dropped her voice. "Or you could go home and fix dinner, and I could give you a workout later." She looked up at him from under her lashes.

He swallowed hard, and she stifled a smug smile.

The hand on her back slid up until he could stroke his thumb against the sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder. "Or we could both go home and work out together."

She couldn't prevent the shiver that traveled down her spine, and his lips curved up at the tiny tell.

 _Focus, Remi_. She was having trouble remembering what she was supposed to be doing. "You," she tapped him on the chest, "need to go home. I need to go work out."

His lips pursed in an adorable pout as he stroked her neck again.

Damn, he was distracting. She couldn't afford to be distracted.

"But hold that thought." They were still alone in the hallway, so she rose up on her toes to brush her lips against his. "I'll see you at home."

"Don't be long." He held her close for a second longer before releasing her.

She darted gratefully into the locker room. It was getting harder to remember where reality ended and her cover began. All the more reason to hurry up and do what she had to do.

She hid in the restroom for a few minutes, until she was sure he was gone, and then checked the hall before crossing quickly to the stairwell. She didn't have that much time. She couldn't afford for Weller to become suspicious.

She rode the subway to Brooklyn, getting off near a busy shopping district. She walked through a parking lot, testing doors until she found one unlocked. Slipping inside, she tugged at the wires under the dash, grinning with satisfaction when the engine turned over.

The night was dark, only a faint crescent moon visible in the sky. She parked the car in an alley a few blocks away from her destination and made her way toward the warehouse.

The decay of the surrounding properties was apparent in the dim light of the few street lights that weren't burned out. She circled slowly around the building, looking for signs of life. The steel door on the side of the warehouse was in good shape, as was the lock. It took her only a few seconds to pick it, and she turned the knob slowly, listening intently as she peered into the darkness.

The warehouse was neither fully dark nor fully silent. There was a light at the end of the hallway, and she could hear music playing somewhere in the distance. She closed the door behind her and set off in search of the source of the noise.

Three doorways revealed only empty storage rooms. At the end of the hallway, a propped-open door led into the garage bay.

A late model SUV was parked in front of one of the large doors. In the work area beyond it, two men slouched on folding chairs in front of a long workbench, smoking and drinking cans of beer. She didn't recognize either of them. A cell phone sat on a crate in front of them, its tinny speaker blaring a hip-hop number she didn't recognize.

Remi frowned. Shepherd hadn't tolerated smoking. She had no use for soldiers who couldn't keep up with their equals. Sure, some of them had still smoked, but they had been careful not to do it where Shepherd could catch them, and they hadn't let it affect their fitness.

Remi eyed the two men critically. Despite the camouflage pattern on their pants, they were too sloppy-looking to be soldiers. They were both large but not especially muscular. And judging by the handgun one of the men had tucked in his waistband, they were more used to settling disagreements with weapons instead of fists. Shepherd had insisted that anyone who fought beside her be just as lethal without as gun as with one. Neither of these men fit the bill.

"You assholes still here?" A third man strode into the garage bay from a room at the back. He was smaller and thinner than the other two, but in much better shape, as evidenced by the muscular biceps his tank top revealed. His hair was close-cropped, in a military-style cut, and he had a gun tucked in the small of his back.

One of the large men looked over at the other and shrugged. "Still waiting for the call."

The skinny guy frowned, his right leg jiggling. "Shoulda called by now."

The large guy who'd spoken before shrugged and took another sip of his beer.

The skinny guy stalked over and grabbed the phone on the crate. He tapped the screen and the music stopped. He tapped some more, and his scowl deepened.

The large guy shrugged again. "Told ya. No calls."

The skinny guy dropped the phone, practically vibrating with impatience.

Remi decided it was time to seek an introduction.

She strolled out of the hallway and into the bay. "Who's in charge here?"

As she'd expected, Skinny reacted immediately, grabbing his gun and aiming it at her. "Who the fuck are you?"

The other two sized her up, clearly deciding she didn't seem like much of a threat, and let Skinny deal with her.

"I'm Remi," she said conversationally, holding her hands out in non-threatening manner while continuing to move forward slowly. "And you are?"

"I'm the guy who's going to put in a bullet in you," said Skinny.

Closer up, she could see that his eyes were dilated, and he was still bouncing his leg. He was high on something. Great. She mentally revised her approach. She needed to get that gun out of his hand before he made good on his threat.

"You don't want to do that," she assured him, still moving forward.

He peered at her suspiciously. "Why not?"

"Because then I might do this." Moving within arm's reach of him, she grabbed the wrist holding the gun and slammed it into the workbench. The gun slipped free, clattering on the workbench, and he gave a startled grunt of pain. She wrenched his arm around until she had him bent over the workbench. He reared back, catching her in the cheekbone with the back of his head, sending a crack of pain through her skull. She shook it off and increased pressure on his wrist, grabbing the gun with her free hand, cocking it, and pressing it against his temple.

The other two men had jumped to their feet and pulled their weapons, but she'd moved so quickly, they couldn't do anything except look at her.

"Back off, boys, or I'm the one who puts a bullet in your friend here."

They stared at her blankly for a moment.

"Put your guns on the floor and back up." When they didn't move, she squeezed the wrist she was still holding. It wasn't broken, but she was sure it hurt like a son of a bitch.

Skinny gave an obliging grunt and yelled, "Listen to her, you idiots!"

Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee looked at each other and then set their guns on the floor and took a couple of steps back.

They could pick them up in a heartbeat, Remi knew, but they were slow enough that she'd be able to shoot them both before they could.

"I just wanted to ask you a few questions," she said to Skinny in a chiding voice. "Who's in charge here?"

"I am," he spat.

"How did you find out about this place?"

"Fuck you."

She squeezed his wrist again and nudged him in the temple with the barrel of the gun. "How did you find out about this place?" she repeated pleasantly.

He tried to jerk free, but she increased pressure on his wrist, and he subsided. "Deke's the one you should talk to."

"Deke. Deke Rivas?" She remembered Deke. He'd been pretty far down on the totem pole. She wouldn't have thought he was even cleared to know about this place, but who knew what had gone down after Shepherd had been arrested.

"Yeah."

"And where would I find Deke?"

"I ain't seen him in a month. He took a shipment and never came back. He's probably dead."

She wasn't surprised that Deke had decided that drugs were a better way to make a living. The problem with hiring mercenaries was that if you could wave a wad of cash under someone's nose to buy their loyalty, someone with a larger wallet could outbid you later. Shepherd had a core group of soldiers who thought like her and supported her cause, but she'd kept the rest in line with regular paychecks and a healthy dose of fear. Quitting her organization wasn't an option. The only way out was a bullet in between the eyes.

Remi stifled a sigh. These guys weren't of any use to her. She didn't need any strung-out junkies screwing up her plans, and she couldn't offer them anywhere close to the money they were probably bringing in now in order to recruit them.

She twisted around, releasing Skinny but still keeping him between her and his goons. She also kept hold of his gun. "Thank you for your help, gentlemen."

Skinny rubbed his wrist and glared at her. "Someone oughta teach you some manners. Don't you agree, boys?"

Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee apparently agreed with him, taking a step forward.

Fuck.

Remi kept her expression pleasant and unthreatening. She held up her free hand. "I'll see myself out."

The twins moved forward again.

"You're not going anywhere, bitch," Skinny snarled and launched himself at her.

Fortunately or unfortunately, he was too strung out to employ any subtlety or subterfuge to his attack and launched himself at her with no finesse. She sidestepped his approach and used his momentum to slam his head into the workbench. He dropped like a stone, but she had no time for relief, because the twins were right behind him.

She couldn't take on both at once. They were huge, and there were two of them and only one of her.

She swung out a lethal kick at the one closest to her, while firing her gun at the other. But the kick threw her aim slightly off, so the bullet caught the second guy in the gut instead of the chest. He swayed but didn't fall. And the first guy was so large (or so hard-headed) that the blow to his head barely slowed him down. He plowed into her, wrapping one beefy paw around her throat as he pinned her back against the workbench. He grabbed her forearm with his other hand, forcing the gun down and away from him.

His hand was large enough to wrap nearly all the way around her neck, and the massive thumb on her windpipe was rapidly cutting off her air supply. So she went with that, allowing her body to go slack in his grasp, rotating the gun in her hand so her thumb was on the trigger as she "passed out."

Her opponent grunted and smacked her head back against the workbench, apparently just to make sure she was out. She grimaced in pain internally, but kept her features slack.

The tight grip on her throat loosened, and she didn't hesitate, firing the gun up into his fleshy belly. She couldn't really judge the angle, but going by the stunned look on his face, she'd managed to hit some vital organ, because his hands fell away, and he staggered back a step. She rotated the gun and shot him again in the chest, point blank, and he took another step back before crumpling to the floor. Behind him, his buddy was still on his feet, so she fired at him, too, and he went down with an audible thump.

Skinny was still out cold at her feet, and she eyed him for a minute, tempted to leave him.

But the tattoos made her far too easily recognizable. She couldn't afford to have a junkie dealer nosing around looking for her, so she aimed the gun between his eyes and pulled the trigger.

Stepping around his prone body, she picked up a rag from the workbench and wiped her prints off the gun, dropping it beside him on the floor.

There was a small smear of blood on the sleeve of her leather jacket, the only article of clothing in Jane's closet that she actually liked. She carefully wiped it off on the leg of her black cargo pants. She straightened her shirt and jacket and left the warehouse just as silently as she'd entered.


	5. Chapter 5

Remi let herself into Weller's apartment. Something delicious-smelling swirled around her as soon as she stepped through the door.

"There you are." Weller stepped out of the kitchen. "I was starting to get worried."

His color looked better, she was relieved to note. He didn't look nearly as tired and worn out as he had earlier.

He caught sight of her face and frowned. "What happened?"

She'd had the whole subway ride to come up with her excuse. She smiled reassuringly, brushing her fingers lightly over the bruised skin over her cheekbone. "I'm fine. One of the new agents wanted to spar, so I stuck around a little later."

Weller's frown deepened. "He hit you in the face?" He sounded so outraged at the idea that she just blinked at him for a moment. If anyone could take a hit to the face, it was her. He moved closer and reached up to trace her cheek with a gentle fingertip.

"It wasn't his fault," she assured him. "I… ah… got a little dizzy. I should have been able to block it."

He cupped her shoulders in his hands, studying her more closely. "Dizzy? We should call Patterson."

"No," she said quickly. "Don't bother her. I just overdid it a bit, I guess. I feel fine now." Well, except for the splitting headache that she attributed to the blow she'd taken to the back of her head, but she didn't mention that.

He didn't look convinced. "We'll talk to her first thing in the morning. If there is anything wrong, you shouldn't go out in the field."

"I am fine for field work." Her tone was slightly sharper than she intended, and he dropped his hands and stepped back.

"I know you want to be out there, helping the team, but we don't know what this illness is going to do, and your health is more important than any case."

She wanted to scoff at him. No single individual was more important than the mission. If there was one thing that had been drilled into her all her life, it was that. But a smaller, quieter voice wondered if it was just that no one had ever valued Remi more than a mission. Shepherd certainly hadn't. And even though Roman and Oscar had tried to talk her out of this one at various times, they'd both ultimately given in. But she knew that Weller would never give in. He would never sacrifice Jane, no matter how important the mission.

"Just let Patterson and her medical team check you out," he continued placatingly. "You know your own limits, I just need you to listen to them, okay?"

Her annoyance fizzled away. She was used to people—men—underestimating her. She'd spent her whole life proving that she was every bit as tough as men twice her size. But she knew Weller well enough by now to know he had intended no veiled criticism. He respected the hell out of her. He treated her as an equal in the field, frequently deferring to her judgment. He was as confident in her abilities as she was. He was just… worried about her, which was somehow far more unsettling.

"All right," she acquiesced in a softer tone. "I'll let Patterson and her team poke me and prod me in the morning." Changing the subject, she added, "What are you cooking? It smells delicious."

"Thai curry."

"Sounds great. I'm just going to grab a quick shower." She flashed him a grin. "Wanna wash my back?" she asked playfully.

An expression she couldn't quite read flickered over his face. "I've got something on the stove."

"Right." She gave him a mock pout and headed toward their bedroom.

But a darker feeling settled over her as she pulled off her clothes and dropped them in the hamper. She was lying to Weller, and he was worrying about her. It was stupid to feel bad about it. This was a mission, and it didn't matter what she said or did in the meantime, she was still going to leave at the end.

She turned on the shower and helped herself to a few ibuprofen while the water heated up. It was too hot when she stepped under the spray, but even that couldn't distract her from her disquieting thoughts.

It should have filled her with satisfaction that her cover was so solid. Weller clearly adored his wife and readily believed anything she told him. But instead she felt… guilty. She'd done her homework before this op, spent nearly a year profiling this FBI team. And she knew that Weller was a decent man. He arrested the bad guys, did everything in his power to help victims, especially women and children. There was no way he wouldn't be completely devastated when "Jane" left him. It shouldn't have bothered her—sacrifices were always necessary for the greater good—but something about it made her feel uncomfortable.

And in an ever deeper, quieter part of her… she was jealous of Jane. Jealous of _herself_ , which made no sense at all. But no one had ever loved Remi the way Weller loved Jane. Oh, Roman loved her, in his own way. And so had Oscar. But it had always been within the context of the work they did. She and Oscar both understood that the mission took precedence. But Weller… Weller loved Jane beyond everything. Beyond any case, beyond the FBI. Beyond _himself_ even. She knew that if he believed that sacrificing his life would cure Jane of whatever this illness was that was supposedly killing her, he'd do it in a heartbeat, without thinking twice.

She'd never believed that kind of love existed outside of fairytales.

Except that Jane _was_ fiction. She didn't really exist. This whole marriage was a made-up story. And even if she'd wanted it to be real, it couldn't be. Jane was like a sanitized, Disney-princess version of Remi, with all the depth of a cartoon character. She had no dark side. Unlike Remi, who was more dark side than light. Boy Scout Weller would never have fallen in love with a woman like Remi. He wanted a do-gooder like himself.

She thought of the men she'd killed tonight. She was reasonably sure Jane wouldn't have done that. By all accounts, she was a perfect FBI consultant. She probably would have obtained a warrant and gone in with backup. Arrested them for possession of drugs. Filled out all the requisite government paperwork. And then gone home with her husband.

Remi turned her face up into the spray. She wasn't Jane, and she never would be. She knew who she was. She'd made her peace with her life long ago. She didn't belong at the FBI. She didn't fit in some narrow government box. People like her worked best on the fringes, in the shadows. They didn't get happily-ever-after endings.

That thought shouldn't hurt. It _didn't_ hurt, she told herself. She grabbed for the shampoo and scrubbed at her hair, hissing when she forgot about the tender spot at the back of her skull.

She was rinsing out the shampoo when the door to the shower opened, and Weller stepped inside.

"Still need help washing your back?"

She turned to face him, blinking water out of her eyes. She opened her mouth to make some flirty reply, but the words escaped her. Driven by an impulse she didn't understand, she stepped into his arms, wrapped her own around his waist, and pressed her face into the comforting warmth of his shoulder.

"Hey," he whispered, his arms immediately tightening around her. "It's okay. It's gonna be okay."

It wasn't, she knew that, but she couldn't tell him why, so she just held on tighter.

She was just so… _tired_ all of a sudden. Tired of lying and scheming and plotting to destroy decent people who probably didn't deserve it in order to get to the people who really did. And she was angry at being all alone in this task, forced to pick up and carry the standard when all the others had fallen.

Weller didn't ask her any questions, just silently held her and offered up all the comfort she needed. Comfort she hadn't even known that she needed until that moment.

It was false comfort, maybe, but she didn't care anymore.

His large hands traced a gentle path up and down her spine, under the soothing curtain of the water, and she could feel the steady beat of his heart where she huddled against his chest. The simple, unfaltering rhythm steadied her.

When she'd managed to shove a lid of sorts over her raw emotions, she drew back a bit. "Sorry," she mumbled, tilting her head back to look up at him.

He cupped her face in his hands. "You never have to apologize for how you feel." His pale eyes were dark with intensity.

She could only nod, more in acknowledgement than in agreement of what he'd said.

The pads of his thumbs stroked across her cheekbones, and he leaned in toward her.

She tilted her face up for his kiss, but his lips landed on her forehead instead.

Despite being naked in a steamy shower together, the kiss was far more about affection and caring than physical desire.

"Thanks," she whispered. The smile that she thought she was forcing felt more genuine when he tilted his chin down to look at her.

He smiled back at her, the familiar light returning to his eyes, and shrugged. "It's in the marriage contract."

She looped her arms up around his neck, happy to follow his lead and leave the heavier emotions behind for the moment. "Ah. The fine print. What else was in there?"

"I think," he leaned forward to press a kiss to the side of her neck, "there was something about washing your back."

"Mmm-hmm." She tilted her head to give him better access to the sensitive spot. "What about your curry?"

"I turned the heat off."

"No heat, huh?" Her voice sounded breathless, and she didn't care. "That's a problem."

"Guess we'll have to make do." But his voice was muffled as his lips traced a slow path from her neck to her breasts.

She closed her eyes and tilted her head back against the tiled wall, allowing herself a moment just to savor as she ran her hands through his hair.

When he lifted his head to kiss her again, she wrapped her arms around him, digging her fingers into the flesh of his buttocks to pull him closer to her.

He stroked his hand down over her hip, then circled to drag his fingertips up the sensitive flesh on the inside of her thigh.

She made a little noise in the back of her throat, and he chuckled against her lips. "I think I found some heat after all."

She retaliated by taking him in her hand, stroking her fingers down the length of him before tightening her fingers around him in the way she knew drove him crazy, reveling in the way he groaned and bucked against her hand.

For long moments, they just touched each other, lost in the sensual haze of giving and receiving pleasure.

"Need you," she finally hissed against his lips, wrapping her leg around his waist to pull him where she wanted him.

He lifted her against him, pressing her back against the tiled wall of the shower, allowing her to guide him home. She wrapped her other leg around him, digging her heels in until they were joined as closely as possible.

And then pure need took over, white hot, as they moved together, bodies straining to be closer with every thrust.

She'd already been close, and it took barely a dozen thrusts before her body tightened around his. But he couldn't stop—and she wouldn't let him—until she reached that peak again, moments later, finally taking him with her over the edge.

She had no idea how much time had passed before he lifted his head enough to press a kiss to her shoulder.

"Plenty of heat," she mumbled, smiling into his hair as she felt his chuckle reverberate through his chest and into hers.

"The water's getting cold." But he didn't seem to be in any hurry to let go of her so they could get out.

"You never washed my back."

He guided her legs down to touch the floor, steadying her with his hands on her waist until she could stand. And then he grabbed the washcloth and made good on his word. She returned the favor, and they would have lingered but the water was ice cold by then, sending them, laughing, out of the shower in search of towels.

"I'll go heat up dinner." He dropped a kiss on the end of her nose and left the bathroom, leaving her standing, bemused, alone in the middle of the bathroom.

It didn't make any sense, and she knew it wasn't true, but she suddenly felt that somehow, some way, things would be okay.

# # #

She dreamed that night, for the first time she could remember. Hazy, half-formed images that made no sense, but seemed to hold grave importance in this dream world. They slipped away when she awoke, drifting away like smoke when she tried to grab on to them.

They continued though, over the next couple of nights. And then she started to see them during the day, just brief insubstantial flashes, until she finally realized they weren't hallucinations caused by her ZIP-induced illness, but memories. _Jane's_ memories.

The images were familiar—scenes featuring the team, Roman, and most frequently, Weller. But it wasn't even the pictures that were so overwhelming.

It was the _feelings_ that accompanied them. Joy, sadness, regret, and something so intense that she was afraid to try to categorize it. Remi had spent her whole life suppressing her emotions, channeling them into action instead, and such a flood of feelings was… terrifying. Overwhelming.

So she did her best to ignore them, shoving them to the back of her mind, into the same compartment that she was pushing all of her conflicting feelings about Weller.

Weller, who was doing his best not to hover, even though his worry for her was clear.

As she'd promised, she'd allowed him to drag her into the medical team that Patterson had assembled. They poked and prodded her and asked her a million questions and then reiterated what they already knew, which was that no one knew much about ZIP poisoning, so she was doing as well as could be expected, given that no one knew what, exactly, to expect.

They hadn't taken her off field work, much to her great relief. Weller usually insisted that she partner up with him so he could keep an eye on her, which was fine by her. They made an excellent team in the field. They hardly needed to use words to communicate—a simple glance or quick gesture was usually more than sufficient. Being out in the field with him was easy. Uncomplicated, in a way that being alone with him wasn't. Or rather, being alone with him was _too_ easy, and it felt like it shouldn't be.

They had just come back from chasing down a dead-end lead from one of the new tattoos and were on their way to the locker room when Remi's phone buzzed. She pulled it out to find a message from Patterson and turned to see Weller looking at his phone. As one, they turned around and headed back toward the elevator.

They met up with Reade outside the door. Patterson's message hadn't told them what she'd found, and he didn't seem to know either, as they filed in and ringed around her touchscreen table.

"So we just got an alert from our facial recognition system that Blake Crawford has finally surfaced outside an HCI Global office in Spain. Rich found a security feed and is bringing it up now." Patterson turned to look at Rich, who appeared unusually grim as he worked on his tablet.

A moment later, the screen behind Patterson shifted to show a blond figure, unmistakably Blake Crawford, emerging from the imposing HCI building, deep in conversation with a shorter, dark-haired man.

"Matías Escarrà is the vice president who oversees the Barcelona office," Rich said. "Not surprising to see her talking to him. But I didn't expect to see this."

Blake nodded to the man, who moved aside to allow her to step into the waiting limousine, revealing the shorter, dark-haired woman following behind her. She exchanged nods with the man as well, then climbed into the car, which pulled away from the curb and vanished from the screen.

No one said anything for a minute.

Rich's fingertips tapped on the tablet, and the image on the screen reversed, backing up until the brunette's face was clearly visible again. "So I'm guessing none of you expected to see what's-her-face either," he said.

Remi looked around the room. Reade and Patterson both looked like they'd been kicked in the stomach. Weller was frowning.

"Actually, that's kind of a relief," Rich continued in the silence. "I mean, I figured all of you knew what she was doing and just forgot to tell the most valuable member of this team—that would be me—but I guess she forgot to tell all of you."

"Tasha's not working for the CIA anymore," said Patterson, finally coming to life again. It was more of a question than a statement as she looked over at Reade.

"I processed her paperwork to remove her from this task force and investigation," he said slowly. "I'll have to contact Keaton to verify that she's actually out of the CIA." He pulled his phone out and tapped on the screen, before lifting it to his ear.

"I asked her what she was going to do," said Patterson softly, "when she turned in her access card to the lab. She said she was going to take some time off and figure out what she wanted to do next."

Reade stepped into the hallway, away from the group, to carry on a brief but apparently heated discussion on the phone, judging by the tense set of his jaw.

Remi tilted her head and contemplated the screen in front of her. No one was saying what she already knew. Tasha had been a part of this task force. She knew that Roman had assumed a false identity to infiltrate HCI Global. Blake Crawford had been in custody in this very office, and had been willing to do whatever she had to in order to protect "Tom Jakeman" from being charged. Then she had left this office, not long after Tasha Zapata's departure, and when she turned up in South Africa, she put a bullet in Roman's gut.

Reade came back into the room. "Keaton would only give me the party line. Tasha was dismissed and is no longer employed by the CIA."

"None of their deep-cover employees are employed by the CIA," Patterson pointed out. "That's part of their cover. There's no way we can know for sure. If the CIA doesn't want us to know who she's working for, we won't."

"Tasha sold Roman out to buy Blake's loyalty," Remi said flatly.

Patterson and Weller exchanged looks.

"We can't know that for sure—" started Patterson, but Weller cut her off.

"We can't prove it. But we know Hank didn't know who Roman was until Roman got to him in South Africa. And Blake didn't know when we had her here. So it's most likely that Tasha was the one who gave her that information."

Remi turned to him in surprise. She hadn't expected anyone on the team to agree with her.

"Tasha was a member of this task force." Reade's tone of voice invited no argument. "We have to assume she is still working with law enforcement until we have evidence that proves otherwise."

"But we can't assume she's still on our side." Patterson turned from Weller to Reade. "Her comms went down during the gala when she was alone with Blake. I couldn't find anything wrong with them. So whatever she is doing, it started while she was still with the CIA and still part of this task force. And she lied to us about it, just like she lied about Borden."

"If we continue to pursue Blake," said Weller, staring at the image frozen on the screen, "we're bound to find Tasha too. And then we can get some kind of explanation."

Patterson looked at him sadly. "We hope."

Remi kept her face impassive. But inside, she was filled with only cold determination. Tasha was as responsible for Roman's death as Blake was. And that meant that she would share the same fate as Blake. Remi would see to that.


	6. Chapter 6

_Sorry for the delay in updating! The start of the school year always sends me for a loop. Belated thanks to snapdragon83 and indelibleevidence for their feedback on this one!_

* * *

Blake and Tasha disappeared off the map as quickly as they'd appeared. Patterson traced their limousine, but it had vanished on the crowded streets of Barcelona, and none of her facial recognition programs reported any sign of either Blake or Tasha.

The mood at the FBI was somber at best in the wake of their sighting.

Reade, who normally took most things in stride, was unusually short-tempered. Patterson attacked the search with a grim intensity, as though personally affronted that her systems had failed to give her any useful intel. Even Rich seemed unnaturally subdued, as he skirted the edge of legal limits in his efforts to find something, anything, that would tell them where the women had gone.

Weller was quiet and intense, too, but Remi suspected it was worry about her as much as frustration with the case.

Her headaches were getting worse instead of better. She tried to hide it from Weller and the team, but she couldn't hide from it herself any longer. As much as she'd hoped that the ZIP poisoning had been some elaborate ruse of Roman's, she couldn't ignore the obvious truth: Something was very wrong with her. Over-the-counter painkillers were doing little to alleviate her headaches, which were now accompanied by bouts of dizziness. Her strange flashes of memories were coming more often, but the random fragments without context created more questions than they answered, leaving her with a sense of confusion and loss.

Despite her best efforts to conceal her symptoms, somehow Weller still knew when she was feeling rough. He seemed to have some sixth sense about her, turning up when she felt the worst and suggesting that they take a break and get something to eat or go home for the night.

It was only fair, she supposed, since she had picked up that something was bothering him. She didn't even really know how she knew. He didn't do or say anything different. She could sense it, though, in his silences. In the way she awoke in the morning to find him already awake and staring up at the ceiling.

She caught him watching her sometimes, a small wrinkle of worry between his brows, and she tried to reassure him without outright lying about her health.

God, she was so tired of lying.

It would have been so easy to just give up, to give in to the life she'd been given as Jane. And it was seductive, she couldn't deny it. But then she'd remember Roman and Oscar and the soldiers on her team who had been killed, and she knew she couldn't give up. Orion had to be stopped, cut out at its roots at the highest levels of government. If she failed, how many more innocent people would die?

So she soldiered on. She tried to be as honest with Weller as she could—omissions rather than outright falsehoods—but it didn't do anything to alleviate her growing guilt.

She hadn't made any progress in finding her former associates, and she was coming to grips with the fact that she was going to have to go it alone, which vastly limited the scope of what she could accomplish. Carter was dead, but he was far from the only player in Orion, and although she'd run stealthy background checks on all of the new CIRG recruits, there was no way to guarantee that there wasn't an Orion plant among them.

With no other avenues available to her, she threw herself back into studying the data on the drive that Roman had given her, grimly aware that, while she possessed memories that Jane didn't have, she also lacked three years of newer information that Jane had. Not for the first time, she cursed her fractured memory and the damn ZIP that was slowly killing her.

There was something that kept nagging her about one of the tattoos on the drive, one that hadn't made it onto her body. Because Roman had changed his mind? Or because whatever it represented had come after the bioluminescent tattoos had been applied?

She squinted at the image on the screen, trying to ignore the pain in her head, and then looked down at the version she'd been re-creating in her sketchbook. There was still something… _off_ about the shapes. Irregular curves that melded into angular, geometric patterns and then back again. She should know what they meant, though she wasn't sure why she was so certain.

She looked at the image again and blinked. She flipped to a fresh page in her sketchbook and started to draw the curved shapes again, leaving out the more angular lines this time. The shapes were still wrong, but… Wait. She drew the shapes a third time, but changed the order and rotated them around until the raw edges ran into each other.

And then she knew what it was. It was a map, an outline of Flathead Lake in Montana. She and Roman had spent a summer there as teens. With Shepherd and Rossi, she remembered now. Shepherd had had to go somewhere—she'd refused to say where or why, and Remi had known enough not to ask—and the few days she'd been gone were some of the happiest they'd known. They'd learned how to fish, gone swimming, built campfires and roasted marshmallows. They'd felt _normal_. No training, no combat or linguistics. No target shooting. Just kids, allowed to be kids for a few brief days.

She flipped back to the first sketch and carefully redrew the geometric patterns, this time over top of the topographical map. With the map pieces correctly aligned, the patterns that overlaid it clearly intersected in one location.

 _Why do you want me to go back there, Roman?_ Was it something to do with Rossi? Or where Shepherd had gone that summer? Or was it an entirely new tattoo case? Something to do with the other drives?

She rubbed her forehead in frustration.

"Everything okay?"

She didn't jump. She'd known somehow that Weller was beside her before he'd spoken.

"I think," she said slowly, "I solved a tattoo." But she couldn't tell him how she'd solved it. Jane wouldn't remember that summer or the trip to Montana. "Or at least, I think this one," she pointed to the image on the screen in front of her, "is a map." She showed him the sketch she'd made. "I feel like I should know where this is." It wasn't really a lie. She _should_ know, she just didn't mention that she _did_. She frowned and rubbed at the omni-present ache behind her temples.

"Hey." He dropped one large hand onto the back of her neck, gently rubbing the base of her skull.

The pain lessened somewhat, and she allowed herself to close her eyes for a moment.

"Let's show Patterson. She can cross-reference the outline with a geographic database. Figure out where that is."

She nodded and forced her eyes to open. "Yeah, that's a good idea." If Patterson didn't find it, she could always feign a memory or something.

She climbed to her feet and gathered up her sketchbook, falling into step beside him. He raised his hand to the back of her neck again, and it took all of her willpower not to melt into him as her body wanted to.

Weller opened the door and ushered her through in front of him.

There was an undercurrent of chaos in the lab.

"How did you—" Patterson stopped in front of them, looking down at her tablet. "I didn't hit send yet."

A half-second later, the phone in Remi's pocket hummed, accompanied by a similar sound from Weller's.

"But it's good that you're here." Patterson turned and headed back to her table. "Rich!"

"No need to bellow, darling." He appeared around the corner, brandishing his own tablet. "It checks out. Our source is legit." He looked over at Weller and Remi. "Oh good, you're here. Where's Reade?"

"I'm here." Reade let the door close behind him as he stepped up to the table. "What's up?"

"Blake and Tasha are in Mexico City." Patterson looked up as she spoke, but her fingers never stopped moving.

Reade froze. " _Both_ of them are there?"

Patterson's head bobbed. "They were identified at the airport twenty-two minutes ago."

"They did another limo getaway—their signature dance move—but I was able to trace the car service and hack into their database." For once, there was no smugness in Rich's delivery.

"We have surveillance on every property owned by HCI or its subsidiaries," Patterson assured them. "They aren't going to be able to escape this time."

Reade nodded. "We need to send a team." He looked around the room and stopped at Remi. "Not Jane."

Remi blinked. "I'm fine. I'm cleared for field work."

"You're staying here."

She reined in her temper with effort. "Blake knows what happened to Roman. I should be there." They couldn't just leave her out of it.

Reade exchanged a speaking look with Weller, who crossed his arms, a muscle in his jaw pulsing, but said nothing.

Remi turned to Weller, confusion beginning to yield to anger. "Kurt? What's going on? I need to find out what happened to Roman."

But it was Reade who finally answered her. "You want to know what happened to Roman?" Reade asked, his voice deceptively low. "You can start by telling us why you stole a car and killed three men in Brooklyn last week. Or why you're deleting records out of the tattoo database. Because until you can answer those questions, you're benched."

Remi froze. They couldn't know. There was no way—except apparently they did. Somehow.

They were all watching her, not with the concern they'd shown over the past few weeks, but with wary suspicion.

 _Game over._

She fought down the flicker of panic that threatened to unfurl inside of her.

Kurt wouldn't meet her eyes, so she turned to Patterson.

The other woman regarded her with a troubled look on her face. "I know you deleted one of the tattoos from the database. You were careful to modify the log files, but after Hirst, I installed extra monitoring software on all of our servers. The machine that was used had your biometric signature, and a security camera recorded you using that machine at the exact time the changes were made."

 _Stupid_. She'd tripped herself up with her own arrogance. She'd been so certain that she had them all fooled. And the whole time—

Reade nodded to Patterson, who drew a deep breath and turned to her touchscreen table. With a few taps, morgue pictures of the three men from the warehouse showed up on the wall of monitors behind her. "The car you stole was caught on a security camera." Remi's face—slightly out of focus, but recognizable down to the distinctive tattoo on her neck—behind the wheel of a car showed up on a screen. "It was reported stolen, but recovered the following day, just a few blocks away from where it was stolen. You exited the closest subway station an hour before the car was reported missing and returned to the same station forty minutes later. The warehouse has been on our watch list as one of the properties that we traced back to Shepherd through financial records."

Kurt was watching her now, something in his eyes pleading with her for what? To deny it all? How could she?

She'd been made. Her cover was blown, and she'd probably end up in the cell next to Shepherd.

For one millisecond, she considered appealing to Kurt. He wouldn't let them take her away, not without a fight. But he deserved better, better than all of this.

Better than her.

So she turned away from him.

"I forgot how smart you are," she said to Patterson. "I should have known better."

"Who were they, Jane?" demanded Kurt, goaded into speech. "The men you killed. Who were they?"

She shrugged as though it didn't matter in the slightest. "I have no idea."

He swallowed, unable to mask the betrayal etched on his features. "There was blood on your pants that matched one of the victims."

That startled her. He'd been so suspicious that he'd been checking out _stains_ on her clothing?

"We don't have time for this," Reade's voice cut through the tension in the room. "I'll have agents escort Jane to Roman's cell until she's ready to talk."

"I'll take her." Kurt didn't look away from Remi as he spoke.

Reade hesitated and then gave in. "Fine. Patterson, assemble a team. Don't alert the CIA. I don't want them to get to Tasha before we do."

Patterson turned to do as he'd asked, but Kurt didn't move.

"Do you want to cuff me, or do you trust me to walk there?" Remi asked at his hesitation. She hated the mocking tone of her voice, but she couldn't seem to stop it. Couldn't show him any softness, any vulnerability.

It was easier this way.

"Walk."

She pivoted toward the door to the lab. She could feel the stares of her former team on her back as she walked away, but it was nothing compared to the silent shadow of Kurt behind her. She could feel him behind her, as though he were touching her, but of course he wasn't. For a second, she let herself remember the comforting warmth of his hand on the back of her neck as they'd entered the lab, but then she pushed it away.

That phase of this plan was over.

Neither of them spoke on the way down to the level that had formerly housed the Zero Division annex. She'd had no reason to visit this level since she'd returned to the FBI, but the moment her feet crossed the threshold of the cell, her inconvenient memories immediately served up an image of Roman, viewed from the other side of the glass wall she now faced.

She swallowed hard. She couldn't think of Roman. But her mind helpfully continued, and she saw Kurt telling her that Roman was being released so he could go home with her. He'd done it for her more than for Roman, she knew instinctively. He'd done it just to give her some hope, something to hold on to.

Which served only to remind her she had nothing now. No Roman. No Kurt. No team, no friends. No mission, no plan.

No hope.

She walked the rest of the way into the cell, trying not to flinch when the door closed behind her.

The cell was bare but for the bed along the wall. Another memory struck her, this one of Weller fluffing the pillows and then sitting down beside her. _"I know your heart. That is not who you are."_

He'd been wrong. This was exactly who she was. It had just taken him this long to see it.

She turned to sit down on the bed and then realized that Kurt was waiting on the other side of the glass. She'd thought that he'd left, eager to lock her up and throw away the key, but of course, he wouldn't do that. He wouldn't leave _Jane_ down here all alone.

Was it possible to hate someone who was also yourself?

"What do you want, Weller?" She kept her voice cold, unwelcoming. She leaned back against the wall behind her, a casual posture that would hide the tension inside of her. She knew what was coming. What she had to do.

"Why did you kill them? Did they threaten you?"

She forced herself to smile. " _I_ threatened _them_. I think they learned their lesson though."

"Why?" The demanding tone of his voice was mitigated by the faintly bewildered look he couldn't quite disguise.

"They were in my way."

"What were you doing there? Were you looking for other members of Sandstorm?" When she didn't respond, he pressed on, "That's it, isn't it? You were looking for them. Why?"

She closed her eyes and ignored the question. There was no point in trying to hide the truth now, she supposed, but there was also nothing to gain by revealing it.

"Where was the first place I said I loved you?"

Her eyes flew open.

He regarded her steadily through the glass. "Where was the first place you said you loved me? Where did we go on our first date?"

She stared at him. What game was he playing now?

"You can't answer any of those questions, can you?" When she said nothing, he nodded as though she'd replied. "You don't remember any of it, do you? You don't remember anything about our marriage. Do you remember being found in Times Square?" When she remained silent, he smacked his hand on the glass wall of her enclosure hard enough to make her jump. "Answer me, dammit!"

She couldn't handle the anguish in his voice.

"It was all a lie, Weller. Jane was never real. I used you to gain access to the FBI." _Now go away_ , she added silently. Let the FBI lock her up and throw away the key. Or more likely, hand her back over to the CIA. She knew Kurt couldn't do that to Jane, but she was betting that Reade could. For the first time, she was glad he was in charge of the NYO instead of Kurt.

"You're lying, if you think that's true. Do you really believe you'd have spent _three years_ pretending to be married to me? To what end?"

"Only I didn't, did I? I left you. Twice."

He didn't so much as blink. "And you came back. Twice."

She stuck out her chin. "Being married to you was useful. From time to time."

"Or maybe being married to me was what you wanted."

His statement struck a little too close to home, so she changed the subject. "Patterson wouldn't have gone nosing around if you weren't on board. What tipped you off?"

"Did you really think I wouldn't know?"

That shut her up for a moment. She'd been so sure that he believed she was Jane.

"You have no idea how marriage works, do you?" His voice was soft, as though he felt sorry for her, and she sought refuge in anger and confrontation.

"I hardly think your fake marriage makes you much of an expert."

He shook his head. "Our marriage wasn't perfect, but it was real. We talked—about real things, not just what was on television. The things that made us happy. The things that scared us. We were honest about the things that we wanted. And you thought—what, that you could just come along and sleep with me and I wouldn't miss any of that?"

"Why did you sleep with me if you knew I wasn't really Jane?" She spoke before she thought and immediately wished she could call the words back.

He didn't say anything for a minute, as he gave her body a long, slow perusal from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. Her skin prickled with an awareness she tried to ignore. "You're my wife. And you offered. I figured you wanted to."

She forced a laugh and hoped it didn't sound as fake to him as it did to her. "Don't flatter yourself. I slept with you to maintain my cover."

"You don't believe that any more than I do." He stared at her through the glass, his gaze too perceptive for comfort. "You're a good actress, but you're not that good. You can tell yourself whatever you want, but somewhere inside of you, you remember the life we had together."

"Even if I did," she said evenly, "the person you married doesn't exist any longer."

"I married _you_. For better or for worse."

"Well, congratulations. You definitely got the 'worse' part."

He didn't say anything to that, and she tilted her head back to lean against the wall behind her. "I may be your wife on paper, but I'm not Jane. Not anymore. And not ever again." _The sooner you accept that, the easier this will be. For both of us._

"You're wrong."

She closed her eyes instead of responding. After a moment, she heard the door outside the cell open and close.

Weller was gone.

She should be relieved. She didn't have to lie to him anymore, didn't have to pretend to be his loving wife.

But even as she thought it, she knew she was the fool, not him. Because he wasn't wrong. There was a part of her, larger than she cared to admit, that wanted to be married to him, wanted to be the woman he loved, the woman who slept in his arms at night and awoke to his sleepy, sexy smile in the morning. But that woman was Jane, and no matter how many memories she retrieved, she was Remi, not Jane.

The sooner they _both_ accepted that, the better.


	7. Chapter 7

The ceiling of the cell was white and boring, without so much as a crack or a water stain to liven things up. When they'd first arrived at the orphanage, she'd been given an upper bunk, and had spent the long hours when she couldn't sleep looking for shapes in the water stains on the ceiling, as she'd once looked for shapes in the clouds with her family. But the ceiling of this cell offered nothing to distract Remi.

Weller didn't come back, and she wondered if he'd gone to Mexico with the team.

An agent she didn't know brought her some food—dinner, she guessed, though the cell had no clock for her to judge the time—but no one from the team came to see her. Which was for the best, she told herself. They were Jane's friends, not hers. To them, Remi was a Sandstorm operative. Their enemy, not the friend they'd worried over.

So she sat alone in her cell, with only her memories for company.

The memories were coming more frequently now. She didn't know if it was because of being in this cell and feeling closer to Roman, or if it was just sheer perversity for them to come back now, when it was too late for them to do any good.

She tried to push them away, as though they wouldn't be real if she ignored them, but the trickle had become a flood. It reminded her of piloting a helicopter. When you were on the ground, all you could see were the trees right around you. But when you took off and rose above the trees, you could see for miles in every direction. On the one side lay the landscape of her childhood, her life as Remi. But on the other… She could see the life she'd had as Jane. And it _had_ been real. She could no longer pretend that it wasn't. But she wasn't Jane. She wasn't the person Weller had married. She'd run from the truth, but there was no one left to lie to anymore.

She dozed, off and on, but the pain in her temples was getting worse. She considered asking the agents who brought her meals for some ibuprofen, though she doubted it would help.

So mostly she just stared up at the ceiling, wondering what the team was doing. Had they gotten Blake? Was Tasha still working for the CIA?

She didn't bother to wonder what they'd do with her. She had an identity now, and some rights, she supposed. They couldn't hold her indefinitely. Ultimately, they'd have to charge her with her crimes. Or turn her over to the CIA.

She tried not to think about returning to the CIA. She'd escaped once before, she told herself. She could do that again. And she'd have a better chance at escaping from a black site than she would from supermax.

She thought about her mission. She'd failed to stop Orion. She'd let them all down, her SEAL team, Markos, Roman, Oscar... But maybe they'd never been meant to succeed. She hoped that Roman had left enough clues on the drive for the team to follow. Maybe they could succeed where she'd failed.

By the third day, or what she thought was the third day, she finally admitted to herself that she'd thought Kurt would come back. That he wouldn't give up on her. But maybe it had finally sunk in that Jane was gone. Maybe he'd realized that the woman he'd married was an illusion and that there was no place in his life for someone like Remi.

She hoped he would move on. That he would find someone who would make him happy. Someone he could shower with all the love that he'd tried to give her. He deserved to be loved like that in return.

The door to her cell opened, and her heart sped up. She sat up, blinking in the bright lights of the cell. Why were the lights so much brighter? Maybe they were borrowing tactics from the CIA. She looked toward the glass wall, hoping to see someone she knew. Even Rich would have been a welcome visitor at this point. But it was just another meal. She shoved herself up off the cot and walked toward the small pass-thru where they delivered her food.

But the lights were too bright, and she couldn't seem to steady herself, and damn, the pain in her head was suddenly excruciating. She tried to stop and regain her balance, but the floor was moving, undulating beneath her. The agent who had delivered her food was talking to her, but she couldn't hear him over the noise in her head. She closed her eyes and surrendered to the darkness.

# # #

The lights were still too damned bright. She couldn't seem to open her eyes, but the red color beyond her closed eyelids told her that the room was still brightly lit.

Her head felt better now. Perhaps she'd finally been able to sleep? And the back of her hand itched. She reached over with her opposite hand and encountered… an IV?

This time she was able to force her eyes open.

She wasn't in the cell anymore. She was in a hospital room, by the look of it.

And she was alone.

She didn't know why she was surprised. Why would Kurt or any member of the team want to wait by her bedside? As far as they were concerned, she was Remi now. Their enemy.

Unbidden, she remembered all the days spent at Kurt's bedside. The team had expected her to want to stay there, so they'd taken turns visiting her as much as Kurt, bringing her her favorite foods or treats, sharing news from the office.

But that was for Jane. No doubt Remi would be transferred to the CIA as soon as they realized she was awake. Which meant that this was her best opportunity for escape.

She tried to sit up, a feat that was much harder than it should have been. She had to grab on to the handrail of the bed to pull herself upright. She was so weak, she felt light-headed from the effort it took.

What the hell was wrong with her?

She tried to remember what had happened, but all she could remember was being in Roman's cell. Kurt had left her there, and he hadn't come back. She'd sent him away, she remembered that much. Had they drugged her? The CIA had some kind of truth serum. Tasha had used it on Hirst. But she'd remember being interrogated, wouldn't she? She hadn't been zipped again, she didn't think. She remembered too much now—both of her lives, as Remi and as Jane.

It had been so much easier when she couldn't remember Jane's life.

She marshalled her strength, so she could scoot to the side of the bed and lower her legs to the floor.

"Oh! You're awake!"

She looked up to find Patterson standing in the open doorway to her room, one hand frozen on the handle.

 _Too late._

Remi swallowed down her panic. Patterson had training, but Remi had more. She just needed to get her legs to work.

"Weller just went home to shower. I should—Let me call him."

"No!" The word burst out before Remi could stop it. She couldn't face Kurt.

Patterson moved the rest of the way into the room, closing the door behind her. "How do you feel?"

Remi shifted her legs beneath the sheet, but they still felt as if they were made of lead. "What happened to me?"

"You collapsed." Patterson eyed her warily. "What do you remember?"

Remi knew what she was really asking, but she sidestepped the question for the moment. "I was in the cell in Zero Division. Did you drug me?"

"Drug you?" Patterson's eyebrows shot up. "No. You passed out."

Remi digested that for a minute. She remembered her headache getting worse, although it didn't hurt now. She eyed the IV and wondered what kind of amazing painkillers they were giving her. "So." She swallowed, then forced the rest of the thought out, "Am I dying then?"

"No!" Patterson's eyes widened. "You're going to be fine." She leaned forward. "The tattoo you solved—of Flathead Lake—do you remember?"

Remi nodded.

"Weller went there. He found another drive. There was more information on there about ZIP and the side effects. We put that with what we had, and then my dad got the scientist who invented ZIP to talk to us and look at the research Roman compiled, and so we synthesized—" She waved her hand. "You don't care about all that, but the thing is, we were able to stop the progression of your illness."

"Just like that?" Remi knew this was the good news, so she braced herself for the bad news that was sure to follow.

"Well, it wasn't _that_ easy," grumbled Patterson, dropping into the chair beside the bed. Growing more serious, she continued, "When you passed out, your brain was starting to shut down. They had to put you into a coma to try to halt the damage until we could find the cure."

That explained why her legs felt like she hadn't used them in weeks. "How long was I out?"

Patterson bit her lip. "Six days."

She'd been unconscious for nearly a week. Which meant it had been, what, nine days since they'd locked her up? "Did you get Blake?" And Tasha?

"Sort of." Patterson sighed. "We found them, but Blake insisted that her cell phone had been stolen right after she arrived in South Africa, so there was nothing to tie her to the scene of Roman's death. And Tasha… Is working undercover, but she wouldn't tell us who she was working for. Probably still the CIA, but they lie about everything," she muttered, more to herself than Remi. "So we had to let them go. Hopefully Tasha can dig up evidence that we can use to actually charge Blake. And we're still working on our end to tie her to Crawford's crimes. We'll get her, I promise."

Remi absorbed that. Part of her still wanted both women dead. But another part of her—the part that was Jane, she supposed—had less appetite for vengeance. She wanted Blake punished for what she'd done, but life imprisonment for someone who was used to a life of power and freedom seemed a fitting sentence.

And Tasha… Tasha had been her friend. She could tell from the shadows in Patterson's eyes that she wasn't the only one who was struggling with what Tasha had done and was still doing. Could she forgive her for her part in Roman's death, if she brought down the person who had killed him?

And then she realized it didn't matter. Her cover had been blown. None of these people were her friends anymore.

"What happens now?" she asked.

"That depends on you." Patterson exhaled and leaned back in her seat, but her gaze never left Remi. "The men you killed all had outstanding warrants, everything from murder to drug trafficking to organized crime. Reade informed the NYPD that you were working undercover for the FBI, so they aren't going to file any charges. Same with the stolen car."

This she hadn't expected. Why would Reade go to bat for her?

"Your FBI clearance has been suspended. If you want to be reinstated at the FBI, you'll have to submit to an interrogation and a polygraph."

Remi blinked. Going back to the FBI wasn't a possibility she'd entertained at all.

"And if I don't go back to the FBI?"

Patterson's clear blue eyes regarded Remi steadily. "You can leave. But you'll be on, like, a million watchlists, so going back to Sandstorm probably isn't a good idea."

Nor was it an option, since there didn't seem to be any Sandstorm to go back to, but she didn't mention that to Patterson.

"They'll just let me leave?" She didn't bother to hide her skepticism. "What, so the CIA can pick me up on the next block, and the FBI can wash their hands of the whole thing?"

"No, the CIA can't touch you." Patterson's head shake was vehement. "Reade and Weller made that clear, and Keaton agreed. You've been granted amnesty for all past crimes. The CIA agreed—in writing—that unless you do something in the future that warrants it, you won't be detained again. But if you go back to Sandstorm, or engage in _any_ suspicious behavior…" Her voice trailed off, the threat in it evident.

Remi considered her options for a moment. They'd been very clever, really. She had freedom, if she wanted. But if she pursued any of her previous objectives, they'd reserved the right to throw her back in a black site so deep she doubted she would ever see the light of day again.

She'd really expected them to just send her back to the CIA. She wondered for a moment if Kurt's hands had been around Keaton's neck as he'd agreed to this, or if it was just the _threat_ of that that had persuaded him. Either way, she shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.

She couldn't let herself think about Kurt and the way he would try to protect her. No. Protect _Jane_. Not _her_.

She was on her own again.

"What do you remember?" asked Patterson again.

She knew what Patterson was really asking: Was she Remi or was she Jane? But how could she explain that even though she remembered being Jane, she still wasn't the person they wanted her to be? "I remember preparing for the mission to infiltrate the FBI," she said carefully, calling upon the practice she'd had spinning half-truths for Kurt.

The hopeful look in Patterson's eyes dimmed. "You might still get your missing memories back," she said with a positivity that was clearly forced.

Remi just nodded. Memories didn't change who she was, she knew that now.

Patterson looked down at her hands, folded in her lap, studying her thumbnail intently.

Remi waited patiently. She knew Patterson well enough to know that she would eventually cough up whatever was bothering her.

She wriggled her toes beneath the cover of the sheet, happy to discover that she seemed to be regaining her strength.

"I'm not gonna ask you to stay." Patterson's voice was soft but determined. "I know you don't really know me—us—and you didn't plan on being here permanently. It's just… Even if you don't remember us, we still remember you."

 _He's not the only one who would miss you_ , said Tasha's voice in her memory. Remi ignored it. _Jane_ was the one they would miss, not Remi.

Patterson paused, perhaps hoping that Remi would interject something. Remi kept her gaze fixed on her knees, and eventually Patterson lurched back into speech. "But if you do decide to—to go, I need you do something." Her voice gained confidence at the end, daring Remi to ignore her.

Remi knew better. Patterson only _looked_ harmless. She raised her chin and met Patterson's blue eyes.

"I need you to tell Weller—to his face—that you're leaving."

Remi didn't move a muscle, but her dismay must have been palpable, because Patterson continued without taking a breath. "When you left him in Colorado, he didn't eat or sleep or _function_. He left Bethany, left his job, left his home to look for you. And you know—even if you don't remember, you should _know_ —that he'll do that again."

Remi swallowed hard. "I can't stop him."

"If you tell him that you're leaving, that it's for good, that you're not coming back, maybe he can actually let go of you and move on."

For a moment, Remi just focused on her breathing. In. And out. In. And out. And then she glanced down, almost surprised not to see a gaping, bleeding wound where her heart had been.

In some distant part of her mind, she knew Patterson was right. Kurt would never give up on Jane. He would search to the ends of the earth—to the canals of Venice or the mountains of Kathmandu—if he had to. She'd known that she would have to push him away, to convince him that there was nothing left worth saving between them.

But the part of her that had been Jane recoiled instinctively from the thought.

"Just… For his sake, please."

She forced her chin to move, up and down. Just once. She should do as Patterson asked, she knew. She just didn't know if she _could_.

"Right. Okay." Patterson stood up. "Your doctors will want to check you out, so I'll send them in. And Weller will be back soon." She took a step toward the door and then stopped and stared down at Remi again. "He hardly left your side, the whole time you were here. He didn't sleep, he barely ate. Just… think about what I said."

And then she was gone.

Remi swung her feet to the side of the bed. She swayed for a minute but stayed upright. The IV cord kept her tethered by the bed, so she applied pressure to the back of her hand with the folded-over edge of her hospital gown so she could pull it out.

Her clothing was folded neatly on a counter by the door to the room. It wasn't the fastest she'd ever dressed herself, but she managed to shrug out of the gown and into her clothes. _Hurry_ , said the voice in her head. _You can rest later_.

She made it out the door to the room and down to the door at the end of the hall before the voices behind her reached her room.

She didn't look back.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Author's note:** This was supposed to be just a couple of short chapters to help me cope with the season finale. Instead, it took me all hiatus to finish this. (So I guess it did distract me until season four got here. Yay? We made it!) _This isn't quite the end; there is one more chapter after this.__

 _I'm sure the actual season is going to be absolutely nothing like this, but it's been a lot of fun to play with this idea._ _Thanks for being so patient & still being interested!_

* * *

No one stopped Remi when she walked out of the hospital, and she was a dozen blocks away before she exhaled fully and admitted to herself that she'd expected to be picked up by the CIA. The part of her that was Jane trusted what Patterson had told her, but Remi's voice in the back of her head reminded her that they'd turned her over to the CIA once before. But with each block that passed under her feet, she relaxed a bit more… which left her brain free to wonder what the hell she should do now.

As Jane, her future had been clear: At some point, the tattoo cases would end, and she would move on with her life. Celebrate anniversaries with Kurt. Build a relationship with Avery. Help raise Bethany. Have a baby of their own. Maybe she hadn't known exactly what shape that future would take—Continue consulting for the FBI? Become a full agent? Find a new career?—but she'd known enough of it to feel confident walking forward.

But now… The future stretched out before her, a deep, yawning chasm she was afraid to peer into.

Since she'd awakened with three years of her life missing, she'd been so focused on her mission that she'd never stopped to wonder what would come after it was over. And truthfully, even before the mission she hadn't thought about _after_ , because she hadn't been entirely sure that there would be an _after_.

And now _after_ was here… and she had no idea what to do about it.

She started to feel a little lightheaded and panicked for a moment that she was still sick after all. And then she realized that she'd been walking for nearly an hour, after being in a coma for days. When was the last time she'd actually eaten real food? She found her wallet in the pocket of her jacket. She knew the team would track her bank card, but she had enough cash for a meal at least.

There was a small family diner across the street, so she went in and found a booth in the back, where she could see the front door.

It wasn't until she sat down that she realized how completely exhausted she was. She'd been running on nervous energy, she supposed, trying to put distance between herself and her demons, real or imagined.

"What can I get you?" A young waitress appeared beside her, her high ponytail bouncing in time with each step.

Remi stared at the menu blankly. She had no idea what to get. As Remi, she'd eaten pretty much whatever was available, since she didn't cook very well. Kurt had taught Jane cook, and then she'd become vegan during her time in Nepal. But she'd gone back to eating whatever was available when she woken up as Remi.

The waitress tapped her pen on her pad. "Do you need more time?"

"Coffee, please. And, uh—" She picked the first thing she saw on the menu. "A burger, please."

The waitress wrote it down and walked away.

Remi just wanted to put her head down on her arms and either sleep or cry, she wasn't sure which. Ordering food shouldn't be hard. She knew what she liked, right? But somehow this was even worse than when she'd first been zipped and arrived at the FBI. Back then, she hadn't known what she liked, so she'd just developed a policy of trying everything and adding things to a mental list of likes and dislikes. But now there were two voices in her head, Remi and Jane, and she didn't know which one to listen to.

Who the hell was she?

She pressed her palms flat against the table and drew a deep, steadying breath. She would sort it out, just as she had when she'd first arrived in Times Square.

Her mission was the more pressing issue. She'd failed, and Orion was still out there.

She could continue to go after them. That's what she _should_ do, she knew. But she had no resources, and now no access to anyone who did. She could continue to look for other members of Sandstorm. There had been other groups, spread out across the country. According to the FBI records, they hadn't captured anyone in the other cells.

But the CIA would be watching for her. The tattoos made her far too recognizable. Even if she could make contact with any of the other groups, no doubt the CIA would swoop in and throw her into a black site before she could blink. They weren't obligated to tell the FBI… and the FBI was no longer obligated to look out for her, either.

Which left the FBI. The part of her that had been Remi screeched in dismay. But the part of her that was Jane overrode Remi this time. She could trust the team, she knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt. She could tell Reade and Patterson and Weller what she knew, and they would do everything they could to find the members of Orion and shut them down.

For a moment, she thought about going back to the NYO and trying to get herself reinstated as Patterson had said. But that would mean working side by side with Kurt, watching him move on as she tried to rebuild walls where there had been none. And she just— She couldn't do it. She was strong, but she wasn't that strong, and she knew it.

So she'd have to go back, just to tell them what she knew. And then she'd leave and figure out where she was supposed to go.

But going back meant that she'd also have to do what Patterson had asked. She'd have to look at Kurt and tell him that she was leaving.

Somehow the threat of the CIA seemed less painful.

The waitress returned and set her burger and a steaming mug of coffee in front of her. "You need anything else?"

"No, thanks."

The waitress pivoted, ponytail swaying, and left her alone with her thoughts again.

The burger smelled good, but she only managed to eat about a quarter of it before she started to feel full. And a little nauseous. It occurred to her, belatedly, that a burger and coffee probably weren't the best choices for a stomach that hadn't had solid food in a week. She nibbled half-heartedly at the fries, and then pushed the plate away.

"Is your burger okay?" asked the waitress, materializing again beside her.

"Um, yeah, it's fine. I'm just, uh, not as hungry as I thought."

The waitress frowned. "Are you okay? You don't look so good."

She was sure she didn't. She'd pulled her clothes on without even looking at a mirror. She probably looked like something right out of a horror movie. She forced a reassuring smile. "I'm fine, thanks."

The waitress didn't look convinced. "Can I get you anything else?"

"A glass of water?"

"Sure thing." She disappeared and returned a moment later to set a glass in front of Remi.

She sipped at it, bit by bit, until the glass was empty except for the few remaining ice cubes in the bottom. The queasy feeling seemed to abate somewhat, much to her relief.

She set some bills on the table and rose cautiously to her feet. She was still tired but no longer dizzy. At this point, she'd take what she could get.

The restrooms were in the back, and after using the toilet, she stopped in front of the sink and worked up the nerve to look in the mirror.

As expected, she looked awful. Her complexion was chalky, and her face strangely puffy. Her lips were cracked and scaly-looking. And her hair looked like a nesting place for a large bird.

She was lucky the waitress hadn't called the cops on her. She looked like patient zero in a zombie plague.

She washed her hands and then splashed water on her face. She used her wet fingers to comb her hair into some semblance of order, and then liberally applied the lip balm she'd found in the pocket of her jacket. It wasn't much, but it was better than before.

And then she made her way back out into the sunlight.

The sun felt good, she realized, after so long without it. She sank onto a bench and closed her eyes, turning her face up to the sky.

She would have to go back to the NYO eventually, but she wasn't strong enough yet to face Kurt. She knew he would take one look at her and realize that she remembered. And then he'd be himself. He'd be relieved and worried about her, and he'd want to take her home and fuss over her. He'd wrap his arms around her like he never wanted to let go. He'd be fierce and protective and refuse to let Reade talk to her until she'd had a chance to rest and recover.

And she couldn't let him do any of that.

Remi had no place in his life, and she knew that, even if he didn't. He'd be so happy to have Jane back that maybe he wouldn't notice at first that she wasn't the same. But just as he'd picked up on the differences before, he would again. And she'd have to watch him look at her with that same expression of hurt betrayal when she let him down. Maybe this time he'd be the one who walked out. Or maybe he'd just ask her to go. Either way, the end result was the same. Better to end things now, like ripping off a Band-Aid, than to pretend things would be okay when she knew they never would.

But even full of resolve, she couldn't make herself move off the bench. So she sat there, half-dozing, as the sunlight faded and the moon rose and the people around her went about their business, heading home for dinner with their families.

New York was never a quiet city, so even when it got late enough that most people should have been home in bed, the streets were still far from empty, and no one gave more than a glance at a lone woman on a bench. She probably looked enough like a homeless person that no one wanted to approach her.

She pushed herself to her feet and set off again. She should find a hotel to sleep for the night. She'd have to use her bank card for that, and she estimated the odds were 50/50 that the team would show up. But she didn't have the energy to worry about that right now.

Once she started moving again, it got easier. But instead of moving in the direction of a hotel, her feet steered her another way, and before she admitted to herself where she was going, she found herself looking down the block to the apartment she shared with Kurt. She looked up to their floor, but the windows were dark.

Of course, he wasn't there. He was probably at the NYO, trying to figure out where she'd gone.

Even though she wasn't ready to face him, she felt unaccountably bereft that he wasn't there. But it was for the best. She'd get some sleep, and tomorrow she'd be stronger. More able to resist temptation.

So she ducked her head and trudged past the front door and down the street, away from the only place that had ever really felt like home.

When she got to the park, she stopped. She couldn't bring herself to sit down on the bench where they'd sat so often together, where he'd once waited in vain for her to show up.

She would have thought it was fair payback for her to wait here alone, but then something prickled across the back of her neck, and before she could force herself to turn around, she knew that he was there.

His face was shadowed, backlit by the streetlight behind him. But even in the darkness, she could see that he looked almost as ragged as she felt. _He hardly left your side, the whole time you were here,_ Patterson had said. _He didn't sleep, he barely ate._ She hadn't been exaggerating.

"Are you okay?" He drew closer, studying her face, but stopped just beyond arm's reach.

She nodded.

"Patterson said you needed some time."

That was an understatement. "She's pretty smart."

His lips curved up ever so slightly at the corners. "That she is." He paused for a beat. "She said your memories hadn't come back. Why didn't you tell her the truth?"

She didn't bother to deny it; the fact that she was here, in a spot he and Jane had claimed as their own, told the truth. She drew a deep breath and forced her eyes to meet his. "Because it doesn't change anything."

He stilled, his gaze fixed on her face. "You're not coming back."

"I'll tell the FBI everything I know about Sandstorm and Orion."

He ignored that. "But you're not coming home."

"No," she whispered.

He nodded and tilted his head back up to look at the sky, hiding his expression from her view. When he finally looked back at her, there was something in his expression she couldn't read. "Because it wasn't real?"

 _No,_ the part of her that was Jane cried out inside, _it was all real, every bit of it_. But telling him that would only make this harder. "You want Jane back, but…" She swallowed and shook her head. "Even though I remember being Jane, I'm still Remi."

He didn't blink. "You've always been Remi."

She recoiled from his words. "No. Jane is _nothing_ like me."

"Of course she is. What you remember doesn't change your heart, who you are inside."

"You're wrong." She shook her head. "The things I've done—"

"You're a survivor. The things you've done are the things you've had to do in order to survive. You've always been Remi, even when you didn't remember her life." His voice was low and insistent. "Remi is brave and strong and smart. She's the part of you that responds in a crisis. She's the reason you could make the shot in the Statue of Liberty, before Jane even knew she could fire a gun. She's saved my life, saved the lives of our team. She kept Alice alive in the orphanage. She's the reason Jane escaped the CIA. And I am grateful to that part of you, because without her, you wouldn't be here with me right now."

She shook her head again, trying to find a way to make him understand. "You—you wanted to have children with Jane, but you wouldn't want me anywhere near Bethany. I've _killed_ children."

She could still see their faces, the first lives she'd ever taken.

He took a step toward her. "In the orphanage?" She didn't respond, but he continued as though she had. "You've never hurt anyone you didn't have to."

"I set this all up, Kurt! I tattooed your name on my back, let Roman kill Emma. I pretended to be Taylor just to use you!"

He didn't flinch. "Because you believed that by doing so, you could stop abuses perpetuated by our own government and protect more innocent people from being harmed. Because you still have the same heart. Jane's heart."

"If I could give Jane back to you—for your sake, I would. But I can't." Her voice rose at the end, desperate to get through to him. _I don't know how to be this person that you lost._ She'd said that once before to him, so long ago, when he'd thought that she was Taylor, but it was still true. She wasn't the woman he loved; she was the woman he'd locked up in a cell. And even though she would have given everything to be Jane again, to be his wife, she couldn't pretend. She'd be lying to both of them, and she was done lying to him. "Jane's gone. I am not the woman you married."

"I married _you_. The name you go by, the memories you have…" He shook his head. "They're part of you, but they aren't _all_ of you. And they aren't what makes you _you_." He took another step toward her, close enough to touch her now, close enough that she could see the intensity in his eyes. "You are more than just little pieces. Jane, Remi—I don't care what name you call yourself. The person you are inside is the same."

She could only shake her head.

"You've been through hell, but you don't have to stay there. You're allowed to be happy."

The words that she'd spoken to him, so long ago, resonated in her heart. She tried to block them, but she remembered what he'd said in return: _We both are._

The yearning to believe him, to reach out and grab the future he was offering, was so strong that she had to close her eyes against the temptation. Jane had believed she deserved that future. Remi knew she didn't.

But his voice didn't stop as he moved closer still. "I love you, whatever name you go by. And I'm going to keep on loving you until the day I die."

She put out her hand to ward him off, but he ignored it. His arms closed around her, and instead of pushing him away, her traitorous fingers curled in the fabric of his shirt, grabbing on to him and holding on tight.

She tried to find words to make him understand why she couldn't stay, why he couldn't possibly love _her_ , but when she parted her lips, a tiny, breathless sob escaped, and the tears she'd been holding back for so long finally broke through.

They were brutal. Ugly, gasping sobs that ripped from her lungs and left her feeling raw and bloodied in their wake. She cried for Alice, for the life that had been torn away from her. She cried for Jane, for the naïve happiness she'd embraced. And she cried for Remi, for all the years of pain and loneliness, for the sense of purpose that had been a poor substitute for love and affection.

His arms tightened around her, supporting her as the last of her strength washed away in the unstoppable flood of tears. Instead of trying to hush her, he just pulled her closer and allowed her to let go of all the pain she'd been hoarding.

It was a long time before she could even catch her breath, before her sobs quieted to broken exhalations, but his hand never paused in its ceaseless pattern up and down her spine.

"I'm not going anywhere," he whispered at last, his lips brushing against her temple. "And I'll follow you wherever you go, so—" he leaned back just far enough to see her face, "it would be easier if you'd just come home." His tone was light, teasing, but she could see the uncertainty in his eyes that he tried to hide.

And her heart overflowed as she finally believed him, finally trusted that he really could forgive her for the things she'd done as Remi, both before she met him and since she'd awoken as her again. She forced her hand to relax the death grip she still held on his shirt and reached up to brush her fingers across the stubble on his jaw. "I love you, too," she whispered. "Not just as Jane," she added, her voice growing stronger. Not just in her memories, but with all of herself, with every fiber of her being. With her whole heart.

She could tell the instant that her words registered. His eyes lit up with all the love she'd tried to deny, and his features softened as the tension drained away from him. He exhaled, a tiny sigh of relief, and leaned his forehead down to rest against hers.

Relaxing herself for the first time in weeks, she wrapped her arms around his waist. She'd been wrong. Wrong to leave him, wrong to believe that he couldn't possibly love all of her. "Let's go home."

And then she realized she'd been wrong about that, too.

Home wasn't their apartment. It wasn't a place at all. It was here, inside the circumference of Kurt's arms, held tight against his heart.


End file.
